Getting your player ready...
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is trying to make it tougher for Congress to block mining and oil-and-gas drilling on public lands.
The Bureau of Land Management, which manages 258 million acres of federal property, stripped from its regulations Thursday a provision that gives two congressional committees the power to compel the interior secretary to temporarily place public land off limits to mining and oil-and- gas development.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and top candidate for interior secretary under President-elect Barack Obama, attempted to employ the provision for the first time in more than 20 years this year in an effort to halt uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.
