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Show your Support for Ken Salazar's Public Lands Management
  1. Signatures
    61 out of 100
    Petitioning
    1. Colorado Daily (Matt Sebastian)
  2. Created By
    Center for Native Ecosystems
About this Petition Petition Letter
Why This Is Important

There is increasing pushback from the oil and gas industry against actions by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to right some of the wrongs of the Bush administration, particularly with regard to oil and gas development.  Please write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper today (Just click "Sign the Petition," then copy & paste the letter into an e-mail). WE NEED TO HELP DEFEND SALAZAR WHEN HE DOES THE RIGHT THING!

Recent Signatures

Applaud Ken Salazar for Public Lands Management

Dear Editor

The economic crisis drives home the need for a deliberate, farsighted approach to developing the nation's energy resources in a manner that respects the needs of diverse stakeholders. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's actions during his first seven weeks have helped restore science to this process while also ensuring lands that possessed unique ecologic or cultural value remained available to hunters, hikers, scientific researchers and other outdoor enthusiasts.

Yet Salazar's measured approach has provoked a backlash by the oil and gas industry and their supporters who had enjoyed a privileged status during the eight years of the Bush administration. Industry and its allies ignore Sec. Salazar's repeated declarations that oil and gas is "very much a part of our energy future" and the seven completed onshore lease sales that have handed over one million acres to industry for $33 million-including right here in Colorado. They also ignore Sec. Salazar's personal participation in a March 18 lease sale of 34.6 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sec. Salazar's actions ensure we develop oil shale in accordance with research on its environmental and economic impacts and help protect unique lands surrounding Utah's & Colorado's national parks that would have yielded little oil. Industry bellyaching about these moves distort the truth and are motivated only by bottom-lines. Let's applaud our new interior secretary for restoring the American people's voice to the management of our public lands and ensuring renewable energy is a true priority.

[Your name]