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Despite very vocal opposition to drilling
our last wild places, federal agencies
are issuing permits as fast as they can.
President Bush personally issued orders
throughout the government to expedite
energy development and BLM and Forest
Service employees were put in a bind:
lease lands and issue drilling permits
or lose your job.
We have a strong tradition of the American
public being deeply involved with big
decisions affecting federal lands. It
is the public—men, women, Republicans,
Democrats, students, professionals, laborers,
blacks, whites, Native Americans—that
has been the great watchdog of our parks,
forests, and monuments. It is the public
that has guided the Forest Service and
the Bureau of Land Management and kept
some balance in their decisions. Through
writing letters, attending meetings, making
phone calls, giving speeches, and fundraising,
people who live and work on the land have
long had a say in how we manage the millions
of acres owned by the taxpayers.
In our travels while making A
Land out of Time, from
Montana to New Mexico, we heard the
same story again and again: the Bureau
of Land Management and the Forest
Service have stopped listening to
the American public. These two agencies,
which oversee hundreds of millions
of acres, hold the public hearings
mandated by law, take tens of thousands--in
some cases millions-- of public comments
favoring conservation, and then proceed
with energy development as if the
hearing never took place.
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DRILLING
THE ROCKIES: Documents & Articles
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