As the price of oil continues to drop, in large part due to a dramatic drop in demand caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the fossil fuel industry is doing everything it can to put its interests before COVID-19 relief. The oil and gas industry is continuing to gobble up giant swaths of public lands and waters on the cheap, and is pushing through massive new extraction projects while the country is reeling from COVID-19 and unable to fight back.
The aggressive selling of leases for oil and gas extraction on tens of thousands of acres of public lands is underway in six western U.S. states. Right now, the fossil fuel industry is pushing the Bureau of Land Management to allow new drilling and fracking leases near the Arches and Canyonlands national parks in Utah—one parcel is double the size of Arches National Park itself! Allowing these new extraction projects would advance the climate crisis, threaten the national parks, destroy treasured public lands, and put the great Colorado River at risk for contamination.
The Department of the Interior cannot sit idly by and watch this happen to our public lands. The National Environmental Policy Act mandates that the public has enough time to analyze and comment on these projects in detail. This cannot be done while the American public is focused on paying their bills and keeping themselves and their families healthy.
Take action now. Sign our petition and demand that the Department of the Interior stops oil and gas leases immediately. We are in a crisis and cannot afford environmental catastrophes.
