BLM posts oil and gas lease sale info

I've written a number of times about the federal government's ongoing, controversial sell-off of the Western Slope. (Here, here, here, here and here.) Today The Craig Daily Press reports that information on a "quarterly oil and gas lease sale is now available. The sale scheduled for Feb. 8, 2007 includes 49 parcels covering 32,125 acres in Colorado."

BLM considers pulling the wool over our eyes. Again.

It's not like the Bureau of Land Management is the most trustworthy organization. And now it's getting even worse. A couple days ago, The Denver Post reported:

The Bureau of Land Management is considering a reorganization that environmentalists and a bipartisan group of House of Representatives members worry could dilute the agency's protection of millions of acres of conservation lands in the West.

The BLM manages about 258 million acres, and among its traditional workload are mining, grazing and timber programs, but it also maintains about 26 million acres under its National Landscape Conservation System. Much of that is in wilderness or national monuments and conservation areas.

The proposal would bring under the umbrella of the NLCS a variety of unrelated programs that, on paper, could make it seem as though substantially more money is being spent on conservation when on-the- ground spending is shrinking.

Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill also are raising concerns about the reorganization, which critics charge was hatched in secret and has had no public airing.

Meanwhile, the Ginn Co. is building 1,700 homes, a golf course and 1,100 acres of ski terrain on Battle Mountain that'll destroy lynx habitat:

Even Ginn Co. researchers admit the development will hurt lynx. "(The) project will result in an adverse affect to Canada lynx and lynx habitats through direct habitat loss and the indirect effects of increased traffic along U.S. Highway 24, which would fragment habitat and increase the chances of lynx mortality..."

Cross-posted at Square State.