When the Bush Energy Policy Confronts Ancient Art

PRICE, Utah - Blaine Miller, a quiet, slow-talking 57-year-old archaeologist, has made a career of studying the haunting scenes of net-wielding hunters and sinuous horned snakes on the smooth rock faces of Nine Mile Canyon near here. His colleagues consider him a leading expert on the 400- to 1,500-year-old images etched and daubed on the canyon walls. But Mr. Miller's bosses at the Bureau of Land Management barred him from evaluating recent proposals for natural gas exploration around the canyon after a gas company executive complained about his work.

Mr. Miller said he had sought more stringent protections for the rock art than the government eventually required. His bosses said he had the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The quiet drama that has played out in the last year because of Mr. Miller's removal from the development review reflects not just the polarization typical of battles between industry and preservationists, but also the pressures on the regulators controlling federal land.