Bush Administration Departing Proposal Slammed As “Fire Sale” For Oil And Gas Industry

If the Bush Administration has its way, iconic views across the country could be sullied by oil rigs and other machinery owned by oil and gas companies. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has announced a December 19th auction of more than 50,000 acres of oil and gas parcels alongside or within Arches National Park and two other redrock national parks in Utah – Dinosaur and Canyonlands – in what environmentalists are slamming as a “fire sale” for the industry.

One of the landmarks that could be affected is the Delicate Arch natural bridge in Utah, a scene so treasured it’s on Utah license plates. The top National Park Service official in Utah is justifiably angry about the announcement, given that his agency wasn’t even properly notified, calling the sale “shocking and disturbing”.

From The Huffington Post:

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.”

Top aides to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne stepped into the fray, ordering the sister agencies to make amends. His press secretary, Shane Wolfe, told The Associated Press that deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett “resolved the dispute within 24 hours” last week.

A compromise ordered by the Interior Department requires the BLM to “take quite seriously” the Park Service’s objections, said Wolfe.

However, the BLM didn’t promise to pull any parcels from the sale, and in an interview after the supposed truce, BLM state director Selma Sierra was defiant, saying she saw nothing wrong with drilling near national parks.

Selma Sierra went on to say that there are many parcels leased around parks, and this is nothing new. But Cordell Roy and conservationists have a bone to pick with that statement, saying the bureau has never before put so many drilling parcels directly on the fence lines of national parks. Franklin Seal, a spokesman for the environmental group Wildland CPR, says you can see drill pads on the hillside when standing at Delicate Arch.

It’s obvious enough what this is: Bush’s final gift to the oil and gas industry. They know they won’t be getting this kind of special treatment from Obama, so they’re asking for as many favors as they can get away with before Bush is gone for good. Environmental reform is coming, like it or not!

Link [The Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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