Trump Practically Gives Away Energy Rights Near Utah Monument
Trump’s Bureau of Land Management is leasing land to oil and gas companies in parts of Utah rich with archaeological sites at fire-sale prices that haven’t been adjusted for inflation since 1987.
Anthropology professor Ruth Van Dyke, whose work was cited in protests of the Utah leases, visited sites in New Mexico on the Great North Road shortly after Trump was elected. She compared drilling near Ancestral Puebloan great houses on federal land to an industrial park.
“Clearly, the BLM did not take indirect and cumulative effects of the oil and gas drilling into account,” wrote Van Dyke of Binghamton University.
Under Trump, Brian Steed, then the deputy director of policy and programs at the Bureau of Land Management, slashed the already inadequate protections under former President Barack Obama.
BLM’s leasing has done nothing but promote lease speculation which certainly fails to benefit the American taxpayer.
Since January 2017, the number of leases BLM has put up for sale in Utah since is more than seven times what was offered during a similar timeframe under Obama.
https://www.dcreport.org/2019/12/31/trump-practically-gives-away-energy-rights-near-utah-monument/