The secretary of Interior, who oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, will provide an action plan by July 7 detailing how the agency will expedite oil drilling permits on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he and tribal chairman Marcus Wells Jr. met with Secretary Dirk Kempthorne Thursday to complain that inadequate staffing at the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in New Town and a laborious, 49-step bureaucratic process are log-jamming drilling on the reservation, which is perched on the lucrative Bakken formation.

Only one Bakken well has been drilled on the reservation - by Marathon Oil Co. - while drilling outside the boundary has been vigorous with 70 rigs in the state probing a formation with an estimated reserve of 4 billion barrels, the largest continual reserve ever discovered in the country.

Dorgan said it's an "outrage" that people who live and work in the area are not able to take full advantage of the opportunity because of BIA vacancies and outdated regulations.

Even as drilling on the reservation is stymied, overall oil production in North Dakota reached an all-time high of more than 150,000 barrels a month in April due to vigorous development of the Bakken shale.

Dorgan said the BIA may have to transfer experienced staff from Denver "to clear this through and get it done. The major problem is staffing."

He said wants an action plan, instead of more lip-service and if the proposed plan isn't satisfactory, he'll meet with Interior again.

Dorgan, who chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, released a report last month that found the BIA office at Fort Berthold had only three staff to deal with more than 1,400 leases on the reservation's trust lands, all of which need review before drilling permits can be issued. The report said another 200 leases were still pending and only four drilling permits were at the point of being processed.

The one well on the reservation took three years to get permitted.

That compares to four steps and about a week and a half of time to get a permit outside the reservation, he said.

Gov. John Hoeven also met with Kempthorne Thursday in Washington, D.C., to press the reservation's case for more staff and less red tape.

Hoeven and Wells recently signed an historic oil tax agreement for a one-stop tax department for oil wells on the reservation. Hoeven said the agreement is encouraging to companies that want to drill on the reservation, but the BIA needs to speed up its part of the process.

Hoeven also asked Kempthorne to approve an Environmental Impact Statement for a new petroleum refinery for the reservation.

The 10,000-barrel daily refinery has been in the works for three years. It would be located just off the reservation near Makoti and tap into a Canadian crude pipeline.

The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a draft environmental statement for the refinery, but needs it approved by the BIA before it can issue a final decision, Hoeven said.

Horace Pipe, a petroleum engineer for the tribe, and Robert G. Wooley, CEO and president of Triad Project Corp., a Utah-based firm that is working with tribal officials to develop the refinery project, also were at the meeting. In 1980, Triad built the last free-standing refinery in North America, a facility in Calgary, Alberta.