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The BLM has proposed leases totaling about 535,000 acres around Utah, including undeveloped backcountry around the White River.
The BLM has proposed leases totaling about 535,000 acres around Utah, including undeveloped backcountry around the White River. (Photo: runt35/Wikimedia Commons)
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Secretary Zinke and the Great Public Lands Wholesale

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will offer up nearly 4 million acres of public lands for lease this year, much of it for dirt cheap

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The BLM has proposed leases totaling about 535,000 acres around Utah, including undeveloped backcountry around the White River.
(Photo: runt35/Wikimedia Commons)

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The United States is now likely the world鈥檚 oil producer. Even so, the Trump administration continues its sprint to lease the nation鈥檚 public lands to energy companies.

From September through the end of the year, the Bureau of Land Management will offer leases for oil and gas drilling on nearly of public lands, according to government statistics the Wilderness Society and Center for Western Priorities. That would听mean, according to the听Center for Biological Diversity,听that for the entire year听the administration will have offered for lease almost 4 million acres in the Lower 48 alone.

That鈥檚 a nearly four-fold increase over 2016, the last year of the Obama administration. And that doesn鈥檛 include lease sales in Alaska and in public waters such as the Gulf of Mexico, where Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has听vigorously pushed leasing as part of the administration鈥檚 policy of energy dominance.

To that end, Zinke has directed BLM offices, which oversee the public鈥檚 oil and gas deposits, to hold lease sales every quarter.听Master leasing plans, or broader planning for the landscape, have been scuttled. Opportunities for the public to comment have been shortened, or dispensed with altogether. The energy industry has cheered these changes, saying the old ways were sclerotic and discouraged sensible development.

鈥淲e鈥檙e risking this heritage so that the Secretary of the Interior can have a messaging moment.鈥

For the Interior Department this kind of wholesale leasing seems to be what they most loudly tout. Earlier this month it issued a press release crowing about third-quarter lease sales in New Mexico that brought in nearly $1 billion. 鈥淐ritics of the Administration鈥檚 American Energy Dominance policy often falsely claim there is little to no interest in Federal oil and gas leases,鈥 Zinke . 鈥淭oday, they are eating their words and once again President Trump鈥檚 policies are bearing fruit for the American people. The people of New Mexico will see about a half a billion dollars of this right back into their roads, schools, and public services.鈥

But this headlong rush to lease is bearing mixed fruit, in more ways than one.

Even as the New Mexico lease sale broke records, in Nevada, bid on roughly 300,000 acres offered for sale this week. That exemplifies the听BLM鈥檚 haphazard and frantic leasing, say critics such as Nada Culver, senior counsel for the Wilderness Society.

The agency is offering up parcels for auction just to obey Zinke鈥檚 directive鈥攚ithout thought to whether it is wise, and regardless of consequence, says Culver. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing millions and millions of acres put up for sale, and they aren鈥檛 being screened.鈥 In Montana, one parcel lay beneath a river, the Wilderness Society found.

But often the issues are more serious. Earlier this month, the听BLM leased to energy companies land just outsideArizona鈥檚 Petrified Forest National Park. And this week, were leased in a much larger offering in Utah, with much of that land going for the federal minimum of $2 per acre. The Salt Lake Tribune a 鈥渂ust.鈥 Even so, environmentalists are upset because some of the leases are near Canyonlands National Park鈥檚 Horseshoe Canyon, the paper reported, and others are near Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

In this week鈥檚 sale, and another coming in December, the BLM has proposed leases totaling about 535,000 acres around Utah. Areas include the Book Cliffs; the culturally sensitive lands east of Bears Ears National Monument; near national parks (Hovenweep National Monument), and in wild, undeveloped backcountry around the White River.

鈥淲e鈥檙e risking this heritage so that the Secretary of the Interior can have a messaging moment,鈥 says Culver. 鈥淎nd his moment will pass, and we will be left with the wreckage.鈥

In Colorado, the BLM is planning to offer 236,000 acres for lease, and the proposed sale concerns the state鈥檚 governor, John Hickenlooper, who recently that more than 108,000 acres of the sale is in 鈥減riority and general habitat鈥 for the greater sage-grouse. The grouse is a chicken-like bird whose numbers are in steep decline throughout the interior West. Despite its free fall, the Interior Department trashed a plan, years in the making, aimed at protecting the bird. The administration鈥檚 new plan makes it for companies to lease and drill in those good-habitat areas. For example, in Montana, environmental groups say nearly 75 percent of parcels proposed for a December sale lie in important sage grouse habitat.

Leasing public lands is hardly new or without controversy, of course. Though the Obama administration offered a declining number of acres throughout its eight years, even it was no slouch when it came to allowing drilling on public lands. Obama鈥檚 鈥渁ll of the above鈥 energy strategy resulted in leasing more than 1 million acres of public lands annually across the Lower 48鈥攁nd sometimes much more鈥攁lmost every year of his presidency.

But under Secretary Zinke, the Trump administration is blowing away those figures, and seem dead set on offering up public lands as quickly as possible, for cheaper than dirt.

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