Rachel right now- Bush opening up Arches Nat'l Park for drilling?

[Beaverhausen]

:mad:

[Clovis Sangrail]

1. please tell me this is wrong

Arches is one of the most beautiful places in the entire country

[XemaSab]

2. There's a conoco-phillips ad floating around filmed in Arches

They will drill in Arches over my dead body!

[Beaverhausen]

3. Ok I googled- found this

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gPGFvz9SOvRKQMt05KWlExlXKMAQD948P24O3

Report: Drilling on federal lands could be faster
By DINA CAPPIELLO – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government isn't doing enough to expedite drilling in federal waters and on public lands, according to a report issued Tuesday by congressional investigators.

In a review of the 55,000 federal oil and gas leases issued to energy companies by the Interior Department from 1987 to 1996, the General Accountability Office found that the vast majority expired without being drilled, and an even smaller amount actually produced oil and natural gas.

"We do not agree that Interior is pursuing expedited development of oil and gas leases," the report reads.

Energy companies currently hold leases but are not producing on about 68 million acres of federal land — property that has the potential to double domestic oil production. About a third of the oil produced in the U.S. in 2007 came from public lands.

House Democrats and Democratic President-elect Barack Obama have said companies should "use it or lose it" — meaning they must drill on lands they currently rent or release them before being awarded new leases.

House Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., who sponsored "use it or lose it" legislation earlier this year said the report validated his "long-held belief that oil and gas companies can, and should, be doing more to develop those leases."

more at the link

[Beaverhausen]

7. and this

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/11/05/bush%E2%80%99s-parting-moves-on-the-environment/

Bush’s parting moves on the environment
Last-minute rule changes would weaken environmental protections, critics say.

By Amanda Paulson| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ November 5, 2008 edition
E-mail a friend Print this Letter to the Editor Republish ShareThisGet e-mail alerts RSS

Reporter Amanda Paulson discusses some of the environmental rule changes proposed by the Bush administration in its last months.


The changes seem minor: clarifications of regulations, revisions to rules, updated land-management proposals.

But some recent proposals from the Interior Department – many likely to be finalized in the waning months of the Bush administration and pushed through with a shortened comment period – are seen by critics as an assault on America’s environmental resources and an attempt to solidify industry-friendly policy.

The proposals include changes to the Endangered Species Act, new management plans for 11 million acres in Utah, an effort to revoke congressional committees’ emergency powers to protect public lands, and a rule change for mountaintop mining regulations.

The Interior Department says the changes are common-sense ones that balance the needs of conservation with those of national energy policy. Environmentalists counter that the actions represent the final efforts of an administration that has been hostile to the environment since Day 1.

“Overall, it certainly is consistent with the approach this administration has taken for the past eight years,” says Sharon Buccino, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s land program. “It’s one final push before they go out the door to really open up public resources for private and industry gain.”

Mr. Bush is not the first lame-duck president to change environmental rules. Bill Clinton, in the last few days of his presidency, pushed through regulations to protect vast areas of the West.

The proposals include the following:

• A change to the Endangered Species Act to disallow the ESA from being used to regulate global climate change even if a species, like the polar bear, is suffering as a result of it. The change also reduces the number of scientific reviews of projects performed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service.

[lob1]

4. Does he think it's off shore?

[codjh9]

5. Bush/Cheney have literally been unbelievably bad on the env., and the vast majority of the public

is utterly clueless to that! Makes me SO pissed off - both that they're that bad, and that idiots like some of my own relatives who 'love nature' or 'care about animals' have elected and re-elected the f-ing Environmental Nazis! But they won't listen to the truth.

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. Grand Canyon also for Uranium mining

The Bush administration is rushing forward with plans to mine the Grand Canyon for uranium, ignoring a command from Congress to cease such operations. Since 2003, mining interests have staked out over 800 uranium claims within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park. As Mineweb reports, "The Bureau of Land Management has published a proposed rule which rejects the House Natural Resources Emergency Resolution enacted in June that bans uranium mining and exploration near the Grand Canyon National Park." The Arizona Republic explains what's at stake:

Never mind that the drinking water of more than 25 million people, served by the Colorado River, is at risk ...

Or that Arizona Game and Fish warns about the impact on wildlife ...

Or that Grand Canyon National Park is still dealing with the toxic mess from past mines ...

The proposed BLM rule would not only reject the House's emergency withdrawal of over 1 million acres of federal land near Grand Canyon National Park from new uranium mining, but also eliminate the provisions that allow Congress to make such withdrawals in the future. The proposed rule, published on Friday, has a remarkably short comment period, closing in less than two weeks on October 27. House Parks Subcommittee Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) blasted BLM's action, saying, "This last-minute move by this 'see if we can get it under the clock' administration is cowardly."

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/10/15/111114/73/

[davepc]

8. There is nothing Bush can do today that can be reversed with a signature from President Obama Jan 20

[codjh9]

10. I hope and think you mean 'can't be' - as in, Obama CAN reverse it

[sandnsea]

9. BLM land, also in Oregon

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/us/08lease.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

They're trying to open lands in Oregon too.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2008/10/an_environmental_legacy_for_th.html

[Beaverhausen]

11. found more

On Tuesday, the bureau announced that it would soon begin selling oil and gas leases — essentially the right to drill — in some of the most beautiful and fragile areas.

Conservationists are aghast, and rightly so. Apparently without consulting the National Parks Service, one of its sister agencies at the Interior Department, the bureau plans to auction more than two dozen leases adjacent to Arches National Park and very close to Canyonlands National Park, risking the parks’ air and water.

Also on the auction block, among other rare and spectacular vistas, is Desolation Canyon, so named by the explorer John Wesley Powell in 1869 while he traveled down the Green River to the Grand Canyon.

This sort of pillage would be hard to justify even if Utah’s reserves were large enough to make a difference, which they are not. The Energy Information Administration says that Utah has 2.5 percent of the country’s known natural gas reserves and less than 1 percent of its known oil reserves. And even if those reserves were worth going after, it would still be essential to protect areas of special cultural, scenic and recreational value.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/opinion/07fri2.html

[Clovis Sangrail]

12. link

look at the map inset

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/us/08lease.html?hp