A Win for the Environment: Proposed Gas and Oil Leases Stopped by Obama's Department of the Interior

Red Sandstone Arches near Moab, Utah, in the Scenic Arches National Park

Proposed gas and oil leases that were slated to lead to the construction of drilling platforms on 77 parcels of National Park lands in Redrock County, Utah were canceled by President Obama's new Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Ken Salazar.

"In the last weeks in office, the Bush administration rushed ahead to sell oil and gas leases near some of our nation's most precious landscapes in Utah," Mr. Salazar said as he justified his actions in a teleconference call from Washington with reporters.

The AP reports that: "Salazar said some of the lease parcels are too close to Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument. Other leases taken off the table were on the high cliffs of whitewater sections of the Green River through Desolation Canyon. Salazar also acted to protect plateaus populated by big game atop Nine Mile Canyon, sometimes called the world's longest art gallery because of its ancient rock-art panels."

Mr.Salazar added that the former-Bush administration proposed sales were initiated without the benefit of any bona fide scientific consultation or review, "particularly of the potential damage to air quality" and were "at the doorstep of some of our greatest national icons, some of our nation’s most treasured landscapes.”

Mr. Salazar criticized the former-Bush administration for it's wholly unnecessary rush to selling the parcels in which any proper balance between the conservation of fragile natural environmental resources were not adequately weighed against the harmful effects presented by the construction of drilling rigs and the extraction of the natural resources of gas and oil.

In order to ensure that the land parcel sales are not allowed to go through; Salazar has instructed the Bureau of Land Management to, according to the AP, "not cash checks from winning bidders for parcels at issue in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups."

The AP reports that: "The sales were worth $6 million to the government in addition to royalties on any oil or gas production."

"Among critics of December's lease auction was Robert Redford, who owns Sundance ski resort and has spent a lifetime on horseback in southern Utah's canyons." Redford (now 71 years old) was happy to say: "I see this announcement as a sign that after eight long years of rapacious greed and backdoor dealings, our government is returning a sense of balance to the way it manages our lands."