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Transcript for Wrestling with Uncertainty, segment 03 of 16
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Perhaps surprisingly this process touches each of us. The assessment affects environmental policy and energy planning, for example, and lies at the heart of many land use decisions. The assessments are used by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service to determine the value of the public lands that form part of our national heritage, and the Forest Service uses the assessment in analyzing the potential impact of resource development in our national forests.
The assessments are available to anyone and have been used by diverse and competing interests. Industry, environmentalists, and both state and federal governments have used the assessments in arguing cases involving the development of public lands, and the assessment reminds us that some portion of the nation's oil and gas resource is perhaps forever beyond our reach. The foundation of the assessment lies in understanding the relationship between oil and gas and the rocks in which they occur. Everything else flows from this.