Eds: UPDATES with additional information from prosecutor and
defense attorney, more background on leases and trial date; minor
edits throughout. Moving on general news and financial services.
SALT LAKE CITY — A judge said Friday that he’s reluctant to put global warming on trial in the case of a Utah college student charged with disrupting a federal oil and gas lease auction for parcels near several national parks.
U.S. District Judge Dee Benson gave attorneys for Tim DeChristopher a month to file briefs saying why they should be allowed to claim he was acting for the greater good. DeChristopher says he posed as a bidder in December — and won $1.7 million in leases — in an act of civil disobedience to protect lands near Utah’s national parks from drilling and call attention to climate change.
After a 45-minute hearing, Benson didn’t rule out the possibility of DeChristopher’s so-called “lesser-of-two- evils” defense but said he’s reluctant to “open this courtroom to a lengthy hearing on global warming.”
Federal prosecutors say DeChristopher’s case should be decided on whether he’s guilty of felony counts of interfering with and making false representations at a government auction. DeChristopher has pleaded not guilty. The Associated Press
