Environmentalists Slam Bush's Departing Proposal As "Fire Sale" For Oil And Gas Industry

[babylonsister]

Environmentalists Slam Bush's Departing Proposal As "Fire Sale" For Oil And Gas Industry

PAUL FOY | November 16, 2008 03:19 PM EST | AP


SALT LAKE CITY — The view of Delicate Arch natural bridge _ an unspoiled landmark so iconic it's on Utah's license plates _ could one day include a drilling platform under a proposal that environmentalists call a Bush administration "fire sale" for the oil and gas industry.

Late on Election Day, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a Dec. 19 auction of more than 50,000 acres of oil and gas parcels alongside or within view of Arches National Park and two other redrock national parks in Utah: Dinosaur and Canyonlands.

The National Park Service's top official in the state calls it "shocking and disturbing" and says his agency wasn't properly notified. Environmentalists call it a "fire sale" for the oil and gas industry by a departing administration.

Officials of the BLM, which oversees millions of acres of public land in the West, say the sale is nothing unusual, and one is "puzzled" that the Park Service is upset.

"We find it shocking and disturbing," said Cordell Roy, the chief Park Service administrator in Utah. "They added 51,000 acres of tracts near Arches, Dinosaur and Canyonlands without telling us about it. That's 40 tracts within four miles of these parks."

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/16/ennvironmentalists-slam-b_n_144195.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. I sincerely hope that this tragedy can be undone by the Obama administration.

[StClone]

3. Implicitly "it's not just Environmentalists.

That object to squandering the last Public lands to appease the greed of the money grubbers that got Bush into office.

[StClone]

2. "Sierra, the BLM's director for Utah"

Bush's wacknut minion's must of dug deep to find a person named Sierra to head the BLM. I am almost certain the name was the clincher for her hire.