Movement in Western oil-gas lease backlog in Wyo.

A more than 2-year-old backlog of federal oil and gas leases in Wyoming began breaking loose Friday as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced it finally will issue 145 leases sold in June 2008.

The BLM plans to defer another 43 leases from that sale, mainly due to ongoing concerns about protecting sage grouse, said officials at the BLM state headquarters in Cheyenne.

Environmentalists have objected to drilling in nearly every area offered for lease in Wyoming over the past two years. The BLM had to study each of those objections, said Michael Madrid, branch chief for fluid mineral operations for the BLM in Wyoming.

BLM officials also blame the backlog on last year's change in presidential administrations, and months of uncertainty over whether sage grouse would be listed as an endangered or threatened species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in March that federal protection for sage grouse is warranted but not possible because other species are in more urgent need of protecting. The announcement helped clear the way for the BLM to decide what to do about the objections involving sage grouse.

"All of that took awhile," Madrid said Friday. "And we finally got there."

More than 1,000 leases still in limbo in Wyoming will be issued by year's end, said Mary Wilson, spokeswoman for the Wyoming BLM.

Companies that bought the 43 leases being deferred have the option of either getting their money back or waiting to see if drilling on those parcels eventually will be allowed.

Waiting for a decision might take some time, Wilson said.

"We're not talking days. We're talking years," she said.

Companies have paid a total of about $50 million for the backlogged leases, accounting for about half of the roughly $100 million in backlogged leases across the region.

The leases being issued in Wyoming are worth about $10 million, which had been held in escrow. About half will go into the federal treasury and half is owed to the state of Wyoming.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal repeatedly wrote to and met with BLM officials to try to get them to issue the leases.

"It's been a process to keep them moving and we've been active in that effort," said Ryan Lance, deputy chief of staff to the Democratic governor.

News that the BLM is issuing leases is encouraging, said Kathleen Sgamma, government affairs director for the petroleum industry group Western Energy Alliance.

"But we continue to be concerned by the uncertainty by the lengthy time, in this case over two years, and the fact that federal leases are still in limbo," she said.