A New Direction For Land Management Bureau??? Auctioning/Use of Public Lands
The attempt to auction off public lands for their resources seems to be primarily a Republican (ie. corporate) goal, but is it that black and white? What IS the Democrats' position on this matter? Do you know? Are Democrats immune to corporate money? Sadly....no. So what do you think of this article regarding the "new" direction for Land Management under Obama?
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In 2014, the Obama administration’s effort to clean up, fix, and modernize the federal government’s oil and gas leasing program on public lands will reach its most critical milestones since the Department of the Interior’s reform agenda launched in 2009. From tests of the administration’s signature oil and gas reforms to looming endangered-species decisions and overdue environmental protection rules, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will have a full plate as she works to restore balance between energy development and the protection of land, water, and wildlife.
In this brief, we assess the long-term impacts of a controversial decision by the Bush administration—one that took place five years ago this week—to lease lands near national parks in Utah for oil and gas development. We present new public opinion data that provide greater detail on Americans’ current priorities for their public lands and help explain why the Utah leasing debacle in 2008 provoked such a strong public outcry.
In addition, we identify six areas to watch that, taken together, demonstrate the extent to which the Obama administration’s reforms to the nation’s oil and gas leasing program are resulting in meaningful and lasting changes in priorities, values, and decision making within the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, the nation’s largest land-management agency. These areas are:
*The creation of Master Leasing Plans to guide drilling to the right places
*The revision of Resource Management Plans on 140 million acres of public land
*The progress of environmental protection rules for oil and gas extraction
*The development of a strong new policy to mitigate the impacts of oil and gas drilling
*The restoration of balance between oil and gas leasing and the permanent protection of public lands
*The protection of sagebrush habitat to alleviate drilling impacts on wildlife
MORE -
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2013/12/18/81291/a-turning-point-for-the-bureau-of-land-management/