From the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance;

"BLM to Hold Christmas Oil and Gas Lease Fire Sale

We knew that the Bush administration and its minions in Utah would do everything in their power before leaving office to compromise our state and its remarkable wilderness landscapes. We were right. The BLM recently issued “records of decision” marking final approval for all six resource management plans (RMPs) just in time for the Bush administration to scurry out of office. It has been hard to read or listen to the nonsense that has come from Utah state director Selma Sierra—herself a close friend of former Interior Secretary Gale Norton—about the burning “need” to get these plans finished “on schedule.”

As lobbyist Bob Weidner told a collection of county and state officials in 2006—with BLM officials and industry representatives looking on approvingly—that’s doublespeak for “striking while the iron is hot” to “fix” these RMPs, “an opportunity that may never come again.” The BLM met industry expectations, leaving us with a sorry collection of illegal plans that throw the door wide open for rampant off-road vehicle damage and energy leasing and development.

Here’s one of the first waves to break: the Utah BLM recently announced that it is delaying previously scheduled quarterly oil and gas lease sales from November 18 to December 19. Why the delay? Because the BLM can only sell these leases after it has approved the above-mentioned RMPs with pro forma records of decision. No records of decision, no lease sales. BLM officials have openly admitted to us that they switched the date to allow them to begin selling leases in some of the state’s most wild and remote public lands—lands that had
been blocked from leasing by a landmark SUWA legal victory in 2006 and several administrative appeals board decisions that followed.

Why would the BLM do such a thing? Quite simply because industry asked (read: told) the agency to do so. There is certainly no shortage of public lands in Utah already under lease but not in production. As of the end of fiscal year 2006, there were over 4.6 million acres of BLM managed land under lease but less than 1 million acres in production.

Bottom line, industry wants to get leases while the getting is good. While that may make sense for a private company’s bottom line, it’s no way to manage Utah’s redrock country.

With your support, we will fight this lease sale, as we have so many other deplorable actions that the BLM has undertaken these past eight years.


to send letter of protest, please visit;
http://www.suwa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=December2008_LeaseSaleArticle

or;

http://www.suwa.org/site/PageServer


background info from SUWA;

For Immediate Release: December 17, 2008

Contact:
Stephen Bloch, SUWA, (801) 428-3981

"SUWA and Others File Suit to Stop Controversial Sale of Oil and Gas Leases in Proposed Wilderness Near National Parks

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and a broad coalition of conservation and preservation groups filed suit in federal district court today to stop the BLM from auctioning off wilderness-quality lands for oil and gas development. The lease sale, which is scheduled for December 19, follows BLM’s equally controversial issuance of six management plans for public lands across eastern and southern Utah, which opened up vast swaths of red rock country to oil and gas drilling and off-road vehicles.

The contested lease sale would lead to the industrialization of some of Utah's most spectacular wilderness-quality landscapes, including Desolation and Nine Mile Canyons, and would degrade air quality at Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and Dinosaur National Monument.

“BLM cut corners on this lease sale, which will do nothing to lower the price that Americans pay at the pump or to heat their homes,” said Stephen Bloch, Conservation Director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “What it will do, however, is leave a legacy of ruin in some of Utah’s most iconic landscapes.”

The complaint (Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance v. Allred) argues that the BLM, in its haste to complete the lease sale before the new administration takes office, disregarded impacts to air quality, failed to protect archaeological sites, ignored the impacts of climate change on public lands, and failed to consider how oil and gas drilling exacerbates the effects of climate change. Joining SUWA as plaintiffs in the case are the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Grand Canyon Trust, the National Parks Conservation Association, The Wilderness Society, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from SUWA, Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council."

###

Here's some articles describing a well planned and thought out tactic to out bid the oil and gas corporations at the BLM land lease auction in Utah;




"A new Monkey Wrench Gang disrupts the BLM auction

With a plot that would have done old Ed Abbey proud, a college student managed single-handedly to disrupt the BLM oil and gas lease auction sufficiently to prevent some parcels from being sold at all, and running up the prices for others.

"An act of civil disobedience without any destruction being done. Clever and well-executed.

Tim DeChristopher, 27, faces possible federal charges after winning bids totaling about $1.8 million on more than 10 lease parcels that he admits he has neither the intention nor the money to buy — and he’s not sorry.

“I decided I could be much more effective by an act of civil disobedience,” he said during an impromptu streetside news conference during an afternoon blizzard. “There comes a time to take a stand.”

The Sugar House resident — questioned and released after disrupting a U.S. Bureau of Land Management lease auction of 149,000 acres of public land in scenic southern and eastern Utah — said he came to the BLM’s state office in Salt Lake City to join about 200 other activists in a peaceful protest outside the building Friday morning. But then he registered with the BLM as representing himself and went to the auction room.

There, he thought about the times he has marched, fired off letters to his congressmen, signed petitions and supported environmental organizations — all to no avail.

“What the environmental movement has been doing for the past 20 years hasn’t worked,” DeChristopher said. “It’s time for a conflict. There’s a lot at stake.” [snip]

BLM official Terry Catlin said the agency didn’t want to reopen the bidding on the parcels DeChristopher snagged unless all interested parties were able to compete for the leases. That means the parcels won’t be available again until at least February — after Obama takes office — during the next scheduled auction.

DeChristopher, who acknowledged upping other bids by about $500,000, said he would be willing to go to jail to defend his generation’s prospects in light of global climate disruption and other environmental threats.

“If that’s what it takes,” he said."

http://oneutah.org/2008/12/20/a-new-monkey-wrench-gang-disrupts-the-blm-auction/

Here's one from the mainstream media;

Impostor disrupts lands bid

Civil disobedience » U. student drives up bids, may face charges.

By Patty Henetz

The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 12/20/2008 07:11:02 AM MST


He didn't pour sugar into a bulldozer's gas tank. He didn't spike a tree or set a billboard on fire. But wielding only a bidder's paddle, a University of Utah student just as surely monkey-wrenched a federal oil- and gas-lease sale Friday, ensuring that thousands of acres near two southern Utah national parks won't be opened to drilling anytime soon.

Tim DeChristopher, 27, faces possible federal charges after winning bids totaling about $1.8 million on more than 10 lease parcels that he admits he has neither the intention nor the money to buy -- and he's not sorry.

"I decided I could be much more effective by an act of civil disobedience," he said during an impromptu streetside news conference during an afternoon blizzard. "There comes a time to take a stand."

The Sugar House resident -- questioned and released after disrupting a U.S. Bureau of Land Management lease auction of 149,000 acres of public land in scenic southern and eastern Utah -- said he came to the BLM's state office in Salt Lake City to join about 200 other activists in a peaceful protest outside the building Friday morning. But then he registered with the BLM as representing himself and went to the auction room.

There, he thought about the times he has marched, fired off letters to his congressmen, signed petitions and supported environmental organizations -- all to no avail.

"What the environmental movement has been doing for the past 20 years hasn't worked," DeChristopher said. "It's time for a conflict. There's a lot at stake."

Plainclothes Salt Lake City police officers were in the room during the auction, the last to be held under the Bush administration. BLM spokeswoman Mary Wilson said the agency requested law-enforcement help due to perceived threats over the hotly disputed sale.

Another man also was detained and questioned about the possibility that he and DeChristopher had committed federal offenses by trying to impede the bidding process, BLM officials said. That man registered as Kent Boardman, of Salt Lake City,

Since the Election Day announcement of the lease sale, preservationists, conservationists, archaeologists, business owners, river runners, anglers and hunters have registered objections to the BLM's plans to allow drilling in some of Utah's most scenic redrock desert.

They challenged proposed leases near Arches National Park, the White River, the greater Desolation Canyon region, Labyrinth Canyon, the benches east of Canyonlands National Park, Nine Mile Canyon, the Book Cliffs and the Deep Creek Mountains.

Objections also have come from the National Park Service, members of Congress and John Podesta, the head of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, who said the lease sale should be halted or altered to accommodate environmental concerns.

In the face of the outrage, the BLM pulled back from its original proposal to lease 360,000 acres. Friday's sale included 149,000 acres in Carbon, Duchesne, Emery, Garfield, Grand and San Juan counties. The BLM said it sold 116 of 131 parcels (including DeChristopher's bids) for a total of $7.5 million.

Kathleen Sgamma, director of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, said it was unusual to see a lease list trimmed so drastically. "The BLM was under a lot of pressure, unfairly," she said.

The auction had been under way for a couple of hours when energy company representatives became suspicious of a man wearing an old red down parka after he won bids on more than 10 parcels numbered consecutively, all around Arches and Canyonlands.

They told BLM officials that the man, brandishing bidding paddle No. 70 and unknown to the regular buyers, also seemed to be bidding up on parcels, raising prices on leases that others eventually won.

The auctioneer took a break and police asked the man, later identified as DeChristopher, to leave the room. After questioning him for more than an hour behind closed doors, BLM and law-enforcement officials requested assistance from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The federal attorneys' spokeswoman, Melodie Rydalch, confirmed the office was conducting an investigation, but declined to provide more details.

During the confusion that followed DeChristopher's removal, Sgamma said she had seen Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance attorney David Garbett "communicating" with DeChristopher during the auction. She questioned whether SUWA had been acting in concert with the man the BLM dubbed a "nuisance bidder."

Garbett, however, said he gave DeChristopher his business card and asked him to call SUWA after the holidays because he had won parcels included in a federal lawsuit SUWA had filed against the lease sale.

After the auction, Kent Hoffman, the BLM's state deputy director for lands and minerals, announced there had been a bogus bidder. But the false bidder was "on the hook to pay," Hoffman said.

"Good," said a woman in the auction room. "Make them pay."

Hoffman said successful bidders who believed their offers had been run up illegally due could withdraw their bids.

BLM official Terry Catlin said the agency didn't want to reopen the bidding on the parcels DeChristopher snagged unless all interested parties were able to compete for the leases. That means the parcels won't be available again until at least February -- after Obama takes office -- during the next scheduled auction.

DeChristopher, who acknowledged upping other bids by about $500,000, said he would be willing to go to jail to defend his generation's prospects in light of global climate disruption and other environmental threats.

"If that's what it takes," he said."

phenetz [at] sltrib.com

article found @;
http://www.sltrib.com/utahpolitics/ci_11274601

Anyone else outside of Utah can help by contacting the BLM directly and voicing opposition to this plan. The BLM lands are for the public trust, and anybody who lives in the U.S. is able to use these lands..


To contact the BLM directly and register your objections to the December 2008 lease sale, write to:

Selma Sierra, State Director
Bureau of Land Management, Utah State Office
P.O. Box 45155
Salt Lake City, Utah 84145-0155

More information can be found on the Utah BLM's website at;

http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en.html

also;

Bureau of Land Management
Utah State Office
440 West 200 South, Suite 500
Salt Lake City, Utah 84145-0155
Phone: (801) 539-4001
TDD: (801) 539-4133
Fax: (801) 539-4013