The agencies include the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the the Office of Surface Mining.

"The bureaucracy really doesn't move quickly," said Ceclia Boddington, a Department of the Interior spokeswoman.

Western officials and environmentalists don't see it that way.

"Last-minute maneuvering" is how Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter described the BLM's September move to open 2.4 million acres in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to oil-shale and tar-sands development.

Among the last-minute initiatives critics say the Bush administration is speeding through or launching:

• A Sept. 4 environmental- impact statement clearing the way for oil-shale development, followed by Nov. 17 commercial-development rules and a Nov. 28 overhaul of six regional management plans to accommodate oil-shale projects.
     

• A permit for the Black Mesa Coal Mine on Navajo and Hopi tribal land in Arizona. The tribes were given a 45-day review period by mining officials, and a request for more time was denied. Permit approval is expected this week.
     

• A BLM sale this Friday of 163,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Utah near national parks, such as Arches and Canyonlands and Dinosaur National Monument. The plan that was needed to offer the leases was completed Oct. 3, and the sale was announced Election Day.
     

• Cutting the public-comment period from 60 to 30 days on rule changes to the Endangered Species Act by removing a Fish and Wildlife Service review that is intended to assure that key species are not jeopardized.
     

• Having no public-comment period on a plan to open 3,700 miles of new pipeline and power-line corridors across the West's public lands by having the plan approved at the Interior Department secretarial level. Western governors have until Dec. 30 to comment.
     

• Issuing an "aspirational" management plan for the Comanche and Cimarron Grasslands in eastern Colorado and Kansas on Oct. 17 with a 30-day comment period.

"There is this sense of a headlong rush by the Bush administration," said Steve Smith, assistant regional director of the Wilderness Society.

Officials for the federal agencies say the timing of these actions is complex and varied.

The Black Mesa mining proposal, for example, was part of a 2006 environmental-impact statement, even though the permit application was made only in May.
   

Streamlined process

A bureaucratic determination also cut the comment period on an Endangered Species Act rule change that was adopted Thursday.

The change frees federal agencies overseeing projects — such as dams and pipelines — from having to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service to assure that key species are not adversely affected.

Agencies will assess species themselves. The aim is to streamline and simplify the process, Interior officials said.

It was ruled a minor change because it would not have a $100 million impact on the economy, and that decision cut the comment period.

"It's not that it isn't important; it just doesn't meet the criteria," said Chris Paolino, an Interior Department spokesman.

"There are at least a couple of examples right here in Colorado where species were overlooked in agency evaluations that Fish and Wildlife raise," Erin Robertson, senior biologist for the Center for Native Ecosystems.

For example, in an oil-and- gas lease on South Shale Ridge, outside De Beque, the BLM failed to note the presence of the threatened Colorado hookless cactus.

And the Forest Service failed to take into account the reintroduction of Canada lynx in the Rio Grande National Forest when evaluating the proposal for the proposed Village at Wolf Creek development.

In both cases, after consulting with the FWS, protections were added, Robertson said.

The 1.4 million-acre Commanche and Cimarron Grasslands in Colorado and Kansas in October received the first management plan under new Forest Service planning rules.

"The aim here was to balance between specifics and getting a plan out," said John Rope, a Forest Service planner. "I'm not sure we've figured it out yet."

On Nov. 4 in Utah, the BLM set a sale of about 360,000 acres of oil and gas leases for this Friday. Twenty days later, it amended the plan after the National Park Service objected to sales near national parks.

Last Friday, it amended it again, saying not all of the environmental assessments could be completed in time. The sale is now down to 163,000 acres.

"That decision shows this was a rush job," said Steve Bloch, attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

The BLM is required to have a quarterly lease sale, and the industry's requested parcels have built up to more than a million acres, said Terry Catlin, energy team leader in the BLM's Salt Lake office.

There was a logjam until the management plans were adopted enabling the industry to designate acres, she said.

"The process was a little different," Catlin said. "It does look like we were a little rushed."

Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com