American hero new Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar scraps sale of oil-and-gas leases in Utah that were done so surreptiously in the last-gasp days of the evil GWBush presidency.
i_hate...@yahoo.com
Due to the earthshattering nature of this very welcome news, as well
as the usual "for fair use, and the education of not only Americans,
but the many people of the world", the article is reproduced here in
toto! Thank you so very much our kind, caring, ecologically minded
heroes and American Patriots of the Obama administration! Yes, what a
breath of fresh air this new administration is, after the 8 long,
dark, and dreary years of the GWBush administration - not only the war
crimes committed by those sinners, but also the environmental crimes
as well, that not only affect Americans, but people throughout the
world!
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Salazar scraps sale of oil-and-gas leases in Utah
By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer Paul Foy, Associated Press
Writer
1 hr 37 mins ago
SALT LAKE CITY – In a high-profile reversal of the Bush
administration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday the
government is scrapping the lease of 77 parcels of federal land for
oil and gas drilling in Utah's redrock country.
"In the last weeks in office, the Bush administration rushed ahead to
sell oil and gas leases near some of our nation's most precious
landscapes in Utah," Salazar said from Washington in a teleconference
call with reporters.
He ordered the Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the
Interior Department, to not cash checks from winning bidders for
parcels at issue in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups.
The sales were worth $6 million to the government in addition to
royalties on any oil or gas production.
"We will take time and a fresh look at these 77 parcels to see if they
are appropriate for oil and gas development," Salazar said.
A federal judge put the sale of the 77 parcels on hold last month
until the lawsuit was resolved. Now, Salazar is refusing to sell any
of them — at least until the new administration has a chance to take a
second look.
Conservation groups promised to press ahead with the lawsuit to
challenge long-term management plans that made the sale of the parcels
possible in the first place. The plans, governing 7 millions acres of
public land in Utah, were approved by the BLM last year.
Among critics of December's lease auction was Robert Redford, who owns
Sundance ski resort and has spent a lifetime on horseback in southern
Utah's canyons.
"I see this announcement as a sign that after eight long years of
rapacious greed and backdoor dealings, our government is returning a
sense of balance to the way it manages our lands," Redford, 71, said
in a statement Wednesday.
Salazar said some of the lease parcels, totaling about 100,000 acres,
are too close to Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur
National Monument, all in Utah. Other leases taken off the table were
on the high cliffs of whitewater sections of the Green River through
Desolation Canyon.
Salazar also acted to protect plateaus populated by big game atop Nine
Mile Canyon, sometimes called the world's longest art gallery because
of its collection of ancient rock-art panels.
The National Park Service protested the Dec. 19 auction weeks before
it was held, and the BLM removed some parcels from the auction list in
response.
At first, the BLM was going to auction a parcel so close to Delicate
Arch, the signature landmark at Arches park near Moab, drills might
have been visible through the center of the 33-foot-wide span. That
parcel was 1.3 miles away. It was taken off the auction list under
Park Service protest, but the BLM took bids on other drilling parcels
within view of Arches, Canyonlands and Dinosaur parks.
The bureau also offered for lease lands in Utah that are largely
considered wild even if they don't have federal protection.
Fifty-five of the contested parcels are in areas proposed for
protection under America's Redrock Wilderness Act, a bill that has
lingered in Congress for years without action because of the Utah
delegation's opposition.
"This area in southern Utah is the land of my youth," said Rep. Brian
Baird, D-Wash., who grew up in Colorado and is co-chairman of the
congressional National Parks Caucus. "Its beauty is stunning, its
silence is deafening and it is simply no place for an oil derrick."
Earthjustice, the group that filed the auction lawsuit, estimated the
lands in question would produce only an hour and a half of oil for the
whole country at current consumption rates.
But those parcels also could have produced clean-burning natural gas,
said industry groups, which condemned Salazar's decision as counter to
President Barack Obama's goal of energy independence.
"We hope today's decision does not signal the administration is
returning to the failed policies of the past, leaving much of
America's vast energy resources locked up while the nation's demand
for energy continues to grow," Jack Gerard, president of the American
Petroleum Institute, said in a statement Wednesday.
Salazar said he was allowing the lease of 39 other parcels auctioned
off in December that were not challenged in the lawsuit.
The BLM is scheduled to hold its next auction in Utah on March 24. It
wasn't known Wednesday what lands might go up for sale next.
"We would hope that Interior will closely scrutinize this sale list
and take BLM off autopilot under the Bush administration," said Steve
Bloch, a staff lawyer for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
___
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Lessee if this has been gotten right. The options to 7 million acres
were turned over to supporters, supplicants, and sycophants of the
GWBush administration for only $6 million? Wow, that is only less
than 88 cents an acre. Oh, how evil the GWBush administration was!