Utah: College student shows up at drilling auction, drives prices up, gets arrested
The Bureau of Land Management held a controversial auction Friday to
sell oil and gas drilling rights to nearly 150,000 acres of wilderness
in southern Utah.
The sale had been strongly opposed by many
environmental groups. Stephen Bloch of the Southern Utah Wilderness
Alliance said, “This is the fire sale, the Bush administration’s last
great gift to the oil and gas industry.” A coalition of environmental
groups opposed to energy development on public lands filed a lawsuit
last week to block the auction. They struck a deal with the Bureau of
Land Management that allowed the auction to proceed on the condition
that the leases on the most contested portions of the land will not be
issued for another thirty days, until a federal judge hears the case.
While many environmental groups launched campaigns to oppose the sale
of the land, one student in Salt Lake City attempted to block the sale
by disrupting the auction itself. Twenty-seven-year-old Tim
DeChristopher posed as a potential bidder and bid hundreds of
thousands of dollars on parcels of the land, driving up prices and
winning some 22,000 acres for himself, without any intention of paying
for them. The Bureau of Land Management must now wait over a month
before it can auction off these properties, but by then the bureau
will no longer be run by the Bush administration. Tim DeChristopher
was arrested Friday and is scheduled to appear in court later today.
He joins us in Salt Lake City.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/22/posing_as_a_bidder_utah_student