Reader comments
58 House members urge Obama to scrap lease sales in Utah

Anonymous | 12:43 a.m. Dec. 23, 2008

58 House members should mind their own business and leave us alone.

Here we go again | 12:55 a.m. Dec. 23, 2008

It is Billy Boy all over again....Liberal Demos have little use for conservative Utah and our states rights. Wise up folks, quit voting these people in.

RCS | 1:53 a.m. Dec. 23, 2008

The eastern states would NEVER tolerate the federal gvoernment owning over 70% of their state!! But they give a blind eye to Utahns not owning their own land! Hard to believe that we put up with it. Give us OUR land and we will decide how it is used. Some day we will get our State's Rights back -- including having a state! (If you don't own your own land, you don't have a state.)

Comments continue below

NANNYISM | 6:01 a.m. Dec. 23, 2008

"These lands are your lands, these lands are our lands..." Well, at least the latter is true. Mostly Eastern snobbish elitist environmentalist Congress people most of whom have never even set foot in Utah nor ever plan to just jump at any snap of the finger by Sierra Club, SUWA, and coalition of enviros to co-sign a letter lest their campaign contributions dry-up or they get a less than stellar environmentalist wacko rating for re-election from their suburban or urban eastern districts. It's easy for them to sign a letter -- no skin off their noses -- doesn't impact their state or district. Looks like the SAGEBRUSH REBELLION is about to be reignited with all of the Clinton people Obama is bringing to his administration. Some "Change!" I want a refund!!!!

Eddie | 6:35 a.m. Dec. 23, 2008

Time for 58 House members to retire. Get the tree huggers out of Congress. Next time I'm paying $4 a gallon for gasoline, I'll remember the good job you're doing.

Geezer | 7:18 a.m. Dec. 23, 2008

Thanks to all the legislators who spoke up for the red rock canyon country. It belongs to everybody from coast to coast, but Utah gets the greatest benefit because these lands draw millions of visitors every year.

RE: Eddie | 7:28 a.m. Dec. 23, 2008

Maybe the oil companies could drill on the thousands of acres they already lease. I hope you have done well the last 8 years with the conseravtive party in charge. Most of the US has not.

Jim Matheson is | 7:56 a.m. Dec. 23, 2008

. . . a ray of sunshine, isn't he?

Suggesting these particular leases weren't well thought out, he "believes" these back-east Congressional busybodies will not try to place more of Utah into their environmental petting zoo.

I wouldn't bet the farm, Jim.

Oh, wait -- you've already bet all the farms in Utah on the good will of the back-east elitists, who know so much more than we do about how Utah should be run.

basinboy | 1:59 p.m. Dec. 23, 2008

RE: Eddie, you apparently don't know much about the energy industry. If there were marketable amounts of oil under those leases you refer to, they would be drilling on them. Just because land is offered for lease doesn't mean there is oil under it in quantities sufficient to justify the investment in drilling. You should educate yourself rather than regurgitating the enviro catch phrases we see repeated ad nauseum.

wilderness is great... | 2:02 p.m. Dec. 23, 2008

Until we're stranded high and dry with no energy alternatives and reliant on foreign imports. If we're not working to solve our energy problems then we'll be unable to enjoy anything about our natural resources and their beauty!

I can whine and whine that the homesteading act desecrated America, littering the pristine wilderness and arable plains with houses, fences, and overgrazing. But then we wouldn't be who we are as a nation today had that not happened!

What's the hurry? | 2:43 p.m. Dec. 23, 2008

Oh what's the hurry. With the price of oil right now no one is going to do any drilling anyway.

Spend you time and money on something else.

Thinkin' Man | 3:05 p.m. Dec. 23, 2008

It's exactly this kind of misguided, short-sighted thinking that got America into the energy mess we're in.

With Federal royalties on oil and gas (up to 25%), we could fund research and development of oil's replacement. The more royalties that come in, the faster alternative fuels will be developed.

Could there be a smarter plan than to use oil to fund its own replacement?

Plainda Express | 3:10 p.m. Dec. 23, 2008

For Every Visitor's Dollar that comes into this state for the purpose of seeing the lands to be drilled on, Drilling could bring 5,000. And Utah gas would stay cheaper longer because of the refinery density here. And thanks to the reclamation act, they will make it pretty again when their done. And then the visitors can come and pay the 1/5000th that they were paying before, and no money will be lost.

mind your own | 4:23 p.m. Dec. 23, 2008

Why don't we declare the whole state of New York a wilderness area? Why doesn't Mr Hinchey worry about his own state? I guess they don't have any problems in NY and so he needs to cross the Rockies to solve some issues.

Eastern liberals | 11:57 p.m. Dec. 23, 2008

have nothing left of Federal Lands in their own areas so they come out here to shut things down. Please just keep quiet or go home. Telling someone what they can do in their own house is the height of ignorance and impropriety. New Yorkers and many easterners are known to be outspoken and sometimes crude in their own domains but why do they not check their mouths at the door when they come to Utah.

Powell | 7:26 a.m. Dec. 24, 2008

All you liberal-baiters, go back and read the story lines about these lease sales, a story that has been unfolding like a bad case of gastroenteritis for the last month. The BLM cobbled together an incredibly bad set of leases, the very last set to be offered before the sun sets on the Bush Administration.
Some of the leases were illegal by the BLM's own documents (being in "no drill" zones); some were just not very sensitive to the needs of the (unconsulted) sister agency the National Park Service. All your partisan fulminating about evil Easterners won't change the fact that the BLM brought all this on itself with its own incompetence.
They've been offering leases 4 times a year for decades; this was just a terrible selection, that seems like a deliberate, 11th hour scam.

Retired ChE | 1:02 p.m. Dec. 24, 2008

How can Obama resist oil & gas leases and additional drilling when that was one of his BIG CAMPAIN PROMISES? Utah has to do her part!

Darvish | 1:38 p.m. Dec. 24, 2008

Anyone who thinks this nonsense will create "energy independence" is seriously misinformed. The oil and gas industry probably can't, and won't, drill in this land until the price of gas and oil go back to their high price bubble glory days the speculators helped create in 2007-2008 before the crash.

Drilling in the US is at a near standstill because it costs too much to create the infrastructure to extract it when oil and gas can continue to purchased from other places like Canada, Mexico, Russia and the Middle East cheaply. US interests are all overseas stealing what they can from other people, while the US companies sell their own US oil to Asia and Europe... NOT the US... because it's more lucrative.

This obstruction was heroic, and is a rare case of ends justify the means. I salute Tim DeChristopher.

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