BLM Suddenly Removes Tracts Bordering Moab, Arches, Dinosaur From Energy Lease Sale - NYT

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Then last week, just as turkeys were being pardoned by governors all over the country, the B.L.M. offices in Cheyenne and Salt Lake City did some pardoning of their own, by pulling some of the most hotly contested areas out of the lease sales planned for December, while continuing plans to lease other controversial areas. Two areas near Moab, Utah, and Arches National Park remain open to leasing, as do some in the Rock Springs area of Wyoming, but the acreage available for oil and gas drilling will no longer include tracts like those on the border of Arches National Park, Dinosaur National Monument and Canyonlands National Park or in the Little Mountain region of Wyoming.

Michael Snyder, the regional administrator of the National Park Service, said last month that his agency had not been given advance notice of the planned leases adjacent to the Utah parks. After meeting last week with Selma Sierra, the B.L.M. director in Utah, he gave up his opposition to two-thirds of the leases. At the same time, however, the B.L.M. withdrew 38,000 acres from consideration for oil and gas development.

Mary L. Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Utah office of the B.L.M., said that the pressure brought to bear on the agency after the original leasing plans were discovered — John Podesta, a key adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, had publicly indicated the last-minute leases might be reversed after Jan. 20 — played no role in the decision to rescind them.

And Steve Bloch, a lawyer with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said in an e-mail message that the lease plan still would do unacceptable damage to sensitive and scenic landscapes.

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http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/blm-backpedals-on-oil-and-gas-leases-in-utah/