The Harvey E. Yates Company, HEYCO, is no stranger to friends in high places. HEYCO, which started this whole debate when it drilled two tests wells in Otero Mesa in 1997, is a company, and more particularly a family, with strong ties to the Bush administration dating back more than twenty years. The Yates family has played a dominant role in oil and gas production since the 1920’s and has obtained enormous political power since then. Today, the family operates or is affiliated with more than 24 companies. In the early 1980’s, one of these subsidiary companies, Yates Petroleum, illegally bulldozed a road into the Salt Creek Wilderness just north of Roswell, NM. The ensuing protests and court challenges that followed this action proved to be unable to stop this powerful company from drilling in a Wilderness area, which has never occurred in New Mexico history. During this time, there were two stout supporters of the actions of Yates Petroleum, one being then Secretary of the Interior James Watt, and a congressman from Wyoming, Dick Cheney. Flash forward to the first term of the George W. Bush administration, just as the draft BLM plan for Otero Mesa is being issued. According to a 2004 report by the Campaign to Protect America's Lands (CPAL), Yates Petroleum in 2001 paid then-lobbyist J. Stephen Griles more than $40,000 to lobby BLM to “secure funding for BLM staffing.” That meant ensuring that an official at BLM would create or revise a land use plan to allow an oil or gas company to drill, CPAL reported.

Shortly thereafter, Griles became deputy Interior secretary, under Gal Norton. In his new role, Griles met on December 6, 2002, with BLM Deputy Director Jim Hughes and BLM Chief of Staff Conrad Lass to discuss the Otero drilling plan.

While at Interior, Griles continued to receive $284,000 per year under a buyout agreement from his former lobbying firm, National Environmental Strategies (NES), which had represented Yates for several years and continued to represent Yates while the payments were made, according to the CPAL report. It is during this time that the BLM then begins to make its changes to better accommodate the requests of HEYCO. Furthermore, during the 2002 election cycle, George Yates, President of HEYCO, held a fundraiser in Roswell, NM for congressional candidate Steve Pearce, with Vice President Dick Cheney as the guest of honor. Pearce went on to win the 2nd congressional seat in New Mexico and has sense been a strong advocate for drilling in Otero Mesa. Though there may not be a smoking gun linking the Yates family to the Bush administration’s national energy policy, or subsequently to the BLM’s final proposal for Otero Mesa, there remains considerable evidence that this family and its companies long history has pushed its power beyond the borders of New Mexico and into policies being written from Washington.

Opening New Mexico’s Otero Mesa to oil and gas drilling will most certainly not be done in an “environmentally sound manner,” neither will it improve the nations energy security, nor lower the cost of gasoline at the pump. By researching the data provided by the BLM in their draft and final proposals for Otero Mesa, it becomes quite clear that the area does not hold vast amounts of oil or gas. What drilling in Otero Mesa will do, however, is destroy the largest and wildest Chihuahuan Desert grassland left in America, contaminate one of the last sources of fresh drinking water in a drought-ridden New Mexico, and perpetuate a myopic 19th century approach to achieving energy independence, without consideration or respect to our quality of life. The Bureau of Lands Management’s plan for drilling in Otero Mesa is without a doubt downright obtuse. It is simply not necessary.

The time has come for not just New Mexicans, but all Americans to stand up in a united voice and demand protection for Otero Mesa, no matter what the cost. We cannot afford to sacrifice or jeopardize our future because of a few fanatical politicians whose beliefs only live in the past.