A federal judge has suspended the Bush administration’s last-minute attempt to lease more than 100,000 acres of land near national parks in Utah for oil and gas drilling. Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled the Bureau of Land Management had not carried out sufficient study of the impact of drilling near the Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and the Dinosaur National Monument. Environmentalists had condemned the auction. One University of Utah student, Tim DeChristopher, had disrupted the auction by posing as a bidder. He ended up buying the rights to twelve parcels of land totaling 22,000 acres.
Judge Suspends Lease of 100,000 Acres of Public Land in Utah
HeadlineJan 20, 2009