Stop Oil Shale Development on the West's Public Lands

Millions of acres of public land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are being considered for oil-shale (fracking) and tar-sand development, the dirtiest energy in the world.

We need your help to tell the Bureau of Land Management to reject this outrageously destructive proposal.

Oil-shale and tar-sand development would consume vast amounts of Colorado River water, which is already running dry. It would destroy thousands of acres of habitat, threaten endemic plants with extinction and accelerate global warming with massive energy inputs and CO2 emissions. Between worsening global warming and the extinction crisis, it's hard to imagine a worse use of public land.

Take action today to tell the BLM to reject this absurd proposal, which flies in the face of sound fiscal, social and environmental policy.
SUBJECT: Don't Use Public Lands for Oil-Shale or Tar-Sand Development

To the Bureau of Land Management:

This letter pertains to the BLM's "draft programmatic environmental impact statement" for oil-shale and tar-sand development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

I am deeply concerned about the potential environmental effects if the BLM initiates a commercial leasing program for oil-shale and tar-sands development. It would pollute our land, air and water and exacerbate climate change. Endemic, threatened and endangered species would be lost.

Between global warming, rampant extinction and a quickly drying Colorado River -- problems that oil-shale and tar-sand development would only worsen -- it's hard to imagine a less prudent use of our public lands.

I therefore oppose any action by the BLM to continue or to authorize any new oil-shale or tar-sand development on public land, or create or continue land-use allocations that would allow for such uses in the future. The draft programmatic environmental impact statement should have included an alternative that does not in any way endorse additional public-land use for this unproven industry.

Oil shale is currently producing no jobs and no revenue -- the Congressional Budget Office confirmed that it is not expected to produce significant revenues through 2022.

The land overlying oil-shale resources in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming is some of the best wildlife habitat in the West, and outdoor recreation and tourism are huge economic drivers for the region. We must protect this sustainable economy by making smart decisions based on sound information.

I ask that you evaluate carefully and disclose fully the serious impacts of all new energy required for oil-shale and tar-sand production and its potentially devastating impacts to our climate, as well as the threat it poses to wildlife, special-status, threatened and endangered species, and to our water, air and communities.

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