http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/biogems_yellowstone_0509

Yellowstone/Greater Rockies

Help Protect the Rockies from Dirty Fuels

Earlier this year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar temporarily halted a Bush-era giveaway of public lands in the Rockies to energy companies. Now, Secretary Salazar is asking for public input on the future of the federal oil shale program -- a decision that may affect over two million acres of wildlands in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. Oil shale production -- which involves heating underground rock at extreme temperatures to turn it into liquid fuel -- would require massive amounts of energy and generate more than twice the amount of global warming pollution as conventional fuel production. The production of this dirty fuel would also leave behind giant toxic waste sites, and could drive mountain lions, black bears, mule deer and bald eagles from their habitat. This process would also use enormous amounts of clean water -- a precious resource that is already scarce in the arid West -- and threaten air quality and human health.

» Tell the Interior Department to reject any new oil shale leasing on western lands and promote clean energy instead.

http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/biogems_yellowstone_0509

Dear Secretary Salazar,

Thank you for suspending any new leasing of public lands for oil shale research, development and demonstration while you consider public input. I support your efforts to take a fresh look at oil shale production on some of the wildest lands in the Rocky Mountain region. 

I am opposed to any more leasing for oil shale research, development and demonstration at this time. The current regulations, finalized by the Bush administration, do not have anywhere near the appropriate environmental or financial standards needed to protect taxpayers, our climate, the Rockies' precious water resources or the two million acres of wildlife habitat that provide some of the best hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation areas in the West. 

In addition, industry has not even begun research on the ground where it already has public land under lease. More than three million acres of lands that are rich in oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are already in private hands. Private investment should occur with private resources.  Leasing more public land to companies while they are not using the public lands they currently have available, and while they have private lands for research, would just be a giveaway of public resources. 

Tar sands production in Canada, whose impacts are similar in nature to oil shale development, has destroyed vast expanses of wildlands, displaced wildlife, produced substantially more global warming pollution than conventional fuel and used up enormous amounts of clean water. We don't want this type of energy development on American public lands. Instead, I urge you to protect these sensitive areas for future generations and focus federal resources on promoting cleaner sources of energy.

http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/biogems_yellowstone_0509