WASHINGTON — Conservation groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday to block the Bush administration’s last-minute sale of oil and gas drilling leases in Utah on spectacular scenery near national parks and ancient rock art panels.
The Bureau of Land Management has scheduled an auction Friday to sell drilling leases covering more than 100,000 acres of wild land in eastern Utah.
Actor Robert Redford, a longtime environmental activist who owns a home in Utah, called the lease sale “morally criminal.”
“These lands do not belong to (President George W.) Bush and (Vice President Dick) Cheney. It’s our land — public lands — and the BLM is supposed to be protecting lands on our behalf,” Redford said via satellite from Los Angeles during a news conference in Washington.
Bush “may be a lame duck,” Redford added, “but he can still quack.”
