WildEarth Guardians

Monday, November 9, 2015
Guardians Calls for an End to Fracking on Public Lands

Citizens Rally in Cheyenne, WY
Contact: Erik Molvar (307) 399-7910

Cheyenne, WY– Citizens gathered today in Cheyenne to call for an end to the federal program that sells off public lands to oil and gas companies for fracking. Protesters contend that today’s Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease sale continues the agency’s legacy of ignoring the serious environmental and health impacts fracking has on the land and local communities as well as the tremendous climate pollution from the federal oil and gas leasing program.

The rally is taking place:

Tuesday, November 3 – 7:00 AM

Holiday Inn Convention Center
204 West Fox Farm Road
Cheyenne, WY

“The BLM is selling leases for our land to multi-million dollar corporations for as little as $2.00 per acre. They'll hold it until prices go back up, then drill or dig and make a huge profit. Then they will pull out, often leaving the land permanently degraded for wildlife habitat, grazing, recreation, or anything else, and we'll probably have to pay a portion of any reclamation that is done. In addition to that- the product they produce goes to increase global warming.

“All of the people in this country own that land, and the vast majority of them are not in the oil, gas, or coal industries. So where is the upside to this?” questioned Ralph Garrett from Laramie.

"The BLM is selling minerals that belong to the public, and in return the public gets fracking next to our homes, destruction of our public lands, decimation of our wildlife, and climate problems that wreak havoc and are costing our nation billions," said Erik Molvar of WildEarth Guardians. "The federal oil and gas program might serve the interests of wealthy corporations, but it's certainly not in the public interest. Wyoming is foolish to bank on a fossil fuel future."

“The corporate giveaway of America’s precious public lands for private fossil fuel development is a bad deal for local communities and a rip off for American taxpayers,” said Ruth Breech, a senior climate and energy campaigner with Rainforest Action Network. “Multibillion dollar dirty energy companies like Anadarko are paying pennies on the dollar to trash our natural legacy and pollute our climate for generations to come. It’s time to stop selling off our shared carbon resources and keep fossil fuels in the ground.”

The climate implications of the Interior Department’s oil and gas leasing program are truly staggering. According to a recent report, already existing federal U.S. oil and gas leases will release 20 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), with a potential of 89 billion tons yet to be leased. The release of 89 gigatons of carbon dioxide would be like putting another 1.8 billion cars on the road for a decade – more than doubling the number of cars that already exist.

Tuesday’s lease sale of over 75,000 acres of public lands just adds to the mess. According to a recent analysis, if fully developed, over four hundred new wells from this sale could produce up to six million tons of CO2e per year for ten years or more, emissions similar to adding more than a million cars to the road each year. According to the government’s own estimates of the costs of climate change, this project will cost society between approximately $100 million to almost $ 1 billion from resulting climate catastrophes like droughts, floods, storms, and lost productivity.

Today’s rally comes the same day as more than 1,000 groups supported an event in Washington, DC calling on heads of state from around the world to reject fracking and keep fossil fuels in the ground. This past September, over 400 environmental organizations, including  labor, climate justice, environmental and faith groups, launched a major new national campaign to keep public fossil fuels in the ground by delivering a letter to President Obama calling on him to end the fossil fuel leasing program on federal lands.

Future protests are planned for lease auctions taking place in Denver, CO on November 12th and Salt Lake City, UT November 17th. Together, these leases comprise nearly a quarter million acres of public land rights being transferred to corporate control, itself only a fraction of the federal oil and gas program, under which 55 million acres have been leased.

For the details on the climate problems posed by tomorrow’s lease sale, download a copy of WildEarth Guardians’ legal protest of the sale here. For more information on the top corporate leaseholders of federal lands read RAN’s report Public Lands, Private Profits.