Unless you live in the Rocky Mountain West, it's hard to realize just how pervasive the push for new petroleum leases in that region really is. Although a vast amount of land is already under lease - and most of those leases have not been developed - the cry in the oil and gas community is for still more access to new territory. The Bush administration has been encouraging this constant push for more drilling, almost entirely without regard to other values. A case in point is the growing pressure to open Valle Vidal, a part of the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico, to coal-bed methane development.

Valle Vidal is an open expanse of valleys and alpine meadows in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, often called the Yellowstone of the southern Rockies. It was given to the nation by Pennzoil in 1982 to be managed as a wildlife habitat, and it is home to the largest elk herd in New Mexico. The move to open nearly half of it - some 40,000 acres - to coal-bed methane drilling is being proposed by El Paso Corporation, which was one of the chief companies involved in the California energy crisis several years ago. There is coal-bed methane development on private land nearby, but the thought of drilling in Valle Vidal has created an unusual coalition of opponents. Even the former head of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association opposes it.

There is a chance that with concerted public opposition, this particular drilling plan can be stopped. But the Valle Vidal situation is a reminder that the oil and gas industry - particularly the coal-bed methane sector - sees no natural limits to the expansion of its leases, no matter how pristine or environmentally significant the land it covets may be. The White House has given the industry no reason to consider restraint. Its energy policy is based entirely on expansion, extraction and consumption, with little thought for conservation or the environment.