Protest at BLM oil and gas auction

“This program is a massive corporate giveaway of publicly owned lands to some of the wealthiest companies on the planet.”

On Thursday November 12th, in Lakewood Colorado, the Bureau of Land Management held an auction allowing industry to bid on more than 90,000 acres of publicly owned oil and gas in central and eastern Colorado.  Critics called it a “climate auction,” saying the public land contains upwards of 1 million estimated tons of potential greenhouse gas pollution, and possibly much more. Protestors gathered outside the auction, including Laurel Sutherlin of Rain Forest Action Network who says Thursdays protest is part of a national campaign to raise awareness about what is happening on public lands.  “This program is a massive corporate giveaway of publicly owned lands to some of the wealthiest companies on the planet.  These are the heritage of all americans and we’ve reached a place right now where the science is clear that we are on a path to really leave our children an incredibly degraded world full of climate catastrophe.”

Sutherlin says Thursday’s protest is also part of a rapidly growing movement calling on President Obama to end the program that leases public lands to fossil fuel companies. “In the last 10 years about 1/4 of the total emissions coming out of the United States have come off public lands fossil fuel extraction.”