Now We Finally Know How Much Federal Land Could Be at Stake in Trumps Rush for More Drilling

[G_j]

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/12/now-we-finally-know-how-much-federal-land-could-be-at-stake-in-trumps-rush-for-more-drilling/


This interactive map lays it all out.

REBECCA LEBER
DEC. 5, 2017

In his speech from Salt Lake City, Utah, on Monday, President Trump called the national monuments he was there to shrink a “natural bounty” that the nation should put “to great and wonderful use.” In this administration, “natural bounty” and “great and wonderful use” do not necessarily refer to the monuments’ beauty and cultural value, but to the vast potential oil, gas, and coal reserves beneath them.

Trump’s actions Monday foreshadow the much wider stakes of his presidency: Beyond monuments, many federal lands sit on top of fossil fuels, and he has wide latitude to open them up to more development.

If fossil fuels are the Holy Grail for the Trump administration—and his emphasis on “energy dominance” suggests they are—there is far more at stake than the 2 million acres the president rescinded from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante’s monument designations. More than 120 million acres of protected land—larger than the state of California—are situated over rich reserves of oil, coal, and gas, according to a new analysis by Greenpeace’s Unearthed investigations team. They calculate that within those public lands are 28.9 million acres of national forests, 13.6 million acres of national wildlife refuge, 2.9 million acres of parks, and 7 million acres of wilderness overlapping with fossil fuel fields and basins.

This is the first relatively comprehensive inventory of federally protected land intersecting with oil, coal, and gas deposits. Unearthed compared fossil fuel estimates from the US Geological Survey, Energy Information Administration, and Alaska Department of Resources with federal land data from the Geological Survey, using mapping software to calculate the percentages of federal land acreage that overlap.

Their interactive map shows the overlay:

[angstlessk]

1. How can they claim 'WE' somehow gain from this?

'WE' gain from the land when 'WE' can make use of it. When the extractors get their hands on that land THEY make tons of cash and 'WE' lose out..

SUCH LIARS ALL!

[G_j]

2. aint no we

the map makes that quite clear.