SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge on Wednesday questioned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s justification for canceling 77 drilling leases sold by the Bush administration around national parks in Utah.
A U.S. Justice Department lawyer maintained Salazar had good reason to cancel the leases — and that a lease isn’t a lease until Salazar decides to issue one.
Until the government decides to release a parcel for leasing, even after an auction, it doesn’t have to do it, Tyler Welti argued.
Those arguments seemed to leave U.S. District Judge Dee Benson less than satisfied during a two-hour hearing, the first in a lawsuit brought by energy producers over Sala zar’s February 2009 decision to cancel much of the lease sale held in the final month of President George W. Bush’s administration.
