Utah BLM lease auction goes through, sort-of
By Christian Probasco, 12-21-08
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The BLM’s auction of mineral and oil leases in Salt Lake City took a turn for the weird last week, beginning with Utah’s best loved/most reviled celebrity, ole Bob Redford’s endorsement of a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Earthjustice to halt the sale.
“You can’t put a price on silence or solitude,” said Redford, “Future generations deserve to experience the wildness and beauty of these lands, and to leave them as a legacy to generations that follow.”
Redford, owner and developer of Sundance ski resort near Provo, Utah, further characterized the leases as “morally criminal.”
But the sale went through anyway. Kinda. The winners will have their money put in escrow while the administration changes hands. The sales may be reversed.
In recent weeks the BLM has withdrawn 84,000 of the original 360,000 acres they originally planned to offer up for auction.
One development company official quipped that the auction was hardly worth attending, according to an article in the Deseret News. Said Don Colton president of Pioneer Oil and Gas, “When we go back out there, you never know we were there. When you’re done, you’ve reclaimed everything.”
And the auction itself was disrupted by a couple environmental activists, one of whom, 27 year old University of Utah student Tim DeChristopher, was arrested. Seems DeChristopher was bidding up the prices on some of the parcels, and winning bids, without any intention of forking over the $1.8 million he now owes the BLM.
“Even with a new administration, we are not on track for a livable future,” read a statement released by the DeChristopher, “This has been made clear by James Hanson, Bill McKibbon, Al Gore and many others.”
“Many of us have sat around countless times saying how much we needed someone to do something. If I am not willing to take a stand for my generation, then who will?”
DeChristopher also had this to say to reporters, according to the Salt Lake Tribune: “What the environmental movement has been doing for the past 20 years hasn’t worked. It’s time for a conflict.”
A few Utah bloggers, notably Becky Stauffer and uber-liberal Cliff Lyon have already tried to spin DeChristopher’s actions into heroism. Lyon urged his readers to thank DeChristopher for what he has already acknowledged was criminal behavior.
On a personal note, I’ve been trying to figure out if DeChristopher is part of Generation X or Y. If Y, then its up to someone else to decide whether he’s speaking for the whole generation. But if he’s part of Generation X, I have some objections to his speaking on my behalf. I don’t remember voting for him. My president is Barrack Obama. Wait a minute, I don’t remember voting for him either.
I’d be the last person to fault DeChristopher for taking direct action, though, especially if he’s willing to plead guilty and accept the consequences, which might include prison time. But direct action cuts both ways. Remember his words, “It’s time for a conflict” when you find more ATV tracks all over your favorite wilderness area, when you find more pictographs defaced and when some Neanderthal throws a brick through your Subaru’s back window because of your “At least the war on the environment is going well” bumper sticker.
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Comments
Christopher has never said that he is speaking on your behalf, so do not spread this lie. Yes, he is a hero.
I concede your point. He didn't say he was speaking for my generation. What he said was, "If I am not willing to take a stand for my generation, then who will?" So he is taking a stand for my generation (or Generation Y). He is only speaking for my generation as far as he believed his actions conveyed a statement.
DeChristopher's action was about as far removed from throwing bricks through windows or defacing pictographs (analogous to defacing the canyon lands by oil & gas interests) ) as it's possible to be and still resist the resource industry's onslaught. And he's willing to risk the consequences. How far would you go, as a reporter, in defending the confidentiality of a source? In refusing to divulge a name, would you then castigate yourself for breaking the law? Or would you just give in because the laws the law, right or wrong?
Although you say you'd be the last person to fault DeChristopher for direct action, you go on to do exactly that.
I said that direct action cuts both ways. DeChristopher made up his mind on the subject and broke the law, according to his own account. He may have cost the companies involved in the auction hundreds of thousands of dollars. Suppose somebody on the other side of the issue decides to take direct action to "resist" the onslaught of the environmental movement?
It seems to me that when you compare DeChristopher's act to violence, like smashing a car window, you're implying he's the cause of the retaliation. But his act was non-violent. I think you've made this false comparison to disparage DeChristopher.
Of course actions cut both ways. The oil & gas interests' aggressive actions in pursuing their development plans in some of the most treasured and fragile areas of the Southwest have spawned DeChristopher's action. What's the news in that? Is the correct response to an action to fall over in a faint?
What may be interesting will be the outcome of this great move on DeChristopher's part. Will a group come up with the $1.8 million for the leases? Then he will have broken no law if it's legal to speculate on mineral resource leases. I bet the oil & gas guys trade their leases. I also wouldn't be surprised if occasionally one outfit will take up a lease just to keep it away from a competitor without ever planning to use it. Isn't that what DeChristopher has done? I think DeChristopher was abiding by the spirit of the resource game, which I find charming.
The effort to protect the last of the West's beauty and ecology is opposed by the efforts by resource interests to despoil it if necessary to get at the wealth beneath. This whole contest is defined by an unending sequence of "direct actions" by one side and the other. So what's all the hand-wringing about direct action?
What if DeChristopher doesn't represent generation x, y or z? (Who do you represent?) What if he was actually telling the truth when he said that he was waiting for 'someone' to do something and once he was there at the BLM offices, realized that he was the "someone" he'd been waiting for?
What if we all took his example to heart?
I'm not implying squat, you. But there are a lot of people out there who will imply, imply, imply. Once you cross the line of what's legal and what's not, unless you're an elected official, a bureaucrat, a cop or a prostitute, there's all sorts of psychological types who will try to get back at you any way they can. There might be some who figure DeChristopher is trying to cost them an extraction-based job. Or will those folks make an exception this time because DeChristopher thought he was trying to save civilization?
You say, "I think you've made this false comparison to disparage DeChristopher." And I say, "I think you're part of a secret plot to steal the pope's underwear," so we're even.
I am only concerned at the moment with whether Tim's actions advanced the cause - the preservation of wild, natural places in Utah - or retarded it. I fear he retarded it, which apparently puts me in the minority of the environmentalists who are chiming in. The lease sale had stripped out the most egregious leases. The BLM, redfaced and in harsh lighting that didn't do any favors to its complexion, was backpedaling furiously. Selma Sierra's career is over. And Mr. Bush is slinking out the back door as a new man takes office, who may very well have undone this whole lease fiasco anyway.
I think your comment about direct action being a 2-way street is the best in your piece. There is a place for civil disobedience in these things, for laying down in front of bulldozers and what not. But it requires a pretty high moral and ethical bar. This lease sale, in my opinion, no longer met that bar. An ATVer with a chip on their shoulder can "direct action" a fragile desert landscape overnight with a multitiude of tracks. Some already do, but this could encourage more of the same, using the same rationale of "something's got to be done."
You could be right, but laying down in front of bulldozers might generate the same response as DeChristopher's action.
I'm glad you understand where I'm coming from. SUWA was well on its way to getting everything it wanted, and still is.
Actually I'm just yanking your chain. I completely agree with your assessment about DeChristopher's motivations.
See my entry on the "scofflaw demographic" for why I would--or should--be the last person to fault my fellow U of U alumnus, at least on the subject of direct action:
http://www.newwest.net/main/article/the_scofflaw_demographic/