BLM oil and gas lease sale 'criminal,' Redford says

He described the acreage being offered in the oil and gas lease sale as places where people can "hear for centuries," with silence that "overwhelms" some people, vistas of "unimaginable" length and clarity and a night sky that can frighten people who have never seen such a sight.

"It is a final insult from an administration that has done so much to destroy this country," Baird said about the sale. "I will do every single thing I can to stop it," before taxpayers funds are needed to fight the results of the sale after the fact, he said.

Redford said he believes that the scheduled sale has a "morally criminal" intent. Once those parcels that the BLM is supposed to be protecting are taken, he said, they will be lost forever to development. Redford owns a home and resort in Utah and said Wednesday that he has spent much of his adult life hiking and horseback riding in Utah, also home to his annual Sundance Film Festival.

"It's an emotional situation for me," Redford said. "We should not allow this to happen. It's criminal. Bush may be a lame duck, but he can still quack. It's our land. Let's keep it. Let's protect it."

Baird, Buccino and Redford praised President-elect Barack Obama's pick for Interior Secretary. Senate Energy Committee member Ken Salazar, D-Colo., will take Dirk Kempthorne's place as secretary of the Interior. Salazar's supporters Wednesday are confident that he knows the value of wild lands and, if necessary, will work to reverse the result of the lease sale.

With higher oil and gasoline prices this past summer, interest in Utah's natural resources hit fever pitch, particularly with the state's supply of oil shale and tar sands.

It's estimated that Utah's share of oil from shale in the Green River formation is about 77 billion barrels, the Utah Geological Survey reported Wednesday. Throughout the formation that spans Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, there may be 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

In addition to the parcels available for sale Friday, the Colorado-based Bill Barrett Corp. is proposing to increase its natural-gas production in Utah to about 800 wells on the Tavaputs plateau near Nine Mile Canyon. That proposal has been met with fierce opposition by watchdogs who are worried that the increased drilling and truck traffic will ruin priceless panels of centuries-old Indian rock art throughout the canyon.

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