One Man's Bid To Save A Scenic Landscape

(CBS)  The Bush administration has only two days left, but right up to the end, it's been taking actions that have environmentalists fuming.

One of those actions had been a plan - enacted in the waning months of the administration - for the Bureau of Land Management to auction off oil-and-gas drilling leases in Utah on spectacular scenery near national parks and ancient rock art panels.

But environmentalist Tim DeChristopher had an unorthodox plan to disrupt those auctions, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker.

DeChristopher moved from Pittsburgh to Salt Lake City to study economics at the University of Utah, and to enjoy the region's wild beauty.

"There are a lot of scenes that make your jaw drop," DeChristopher said. "It's not like any other place in the world."

When DeChristopher learned of the Bush plan, he said he had to act, and jointing protests would not be enough.

"Following the standard ways of creating change: that's not really going to be effective in this case," he said.

So, after his final exam, he went to the auction and talked his way in: "They said, 'Are you here to be a bidder?' And I said, 'Why yes I am.'"

DeChristopher planned to disrupt the auction with shouts of protest. But, on the spot, he came up with a more disruptive plan: He bid on the oil leases, driving prices way up on some parcels and outright winning bids on 22,000 acres of land for $1.7 million - money that he has neither the means nor the intention of paying.

He threw the auction into chaos.

"It cost us potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars," one competing bidder said.

"He defrauded the government, he defrauded the public by going in and bidding on these parcels," said Jason Blake, another bidder.

Environmentalists hauled out the big guns to shoot down the Utah land auction.

"The fact that they are shoving this in at the last moment as they're going out the door is typical of the last eight years," actor and environmentalist Robert Redford told CBS News.

But what the environmentalists couldn't do, DeChristopher did, and under the Obama administration, the land likely will not go on the auction block again.

"I suppose that is one of the reasons I started studying economics," DeChristopher said. "If we want to effect change we have to use the economic tools to do it."

He's now the darling of many environmentalists. A Web site, www.bidder70.org has raised $45,000 to actually pay for the leases DeChristopher bought. It's also cataloguing the media coverage of his defiant act and continuing to press his cause.

But the federal government says it's too late. DeChristopher could face fraud charges in federal court.

"I realized that there would be sever consequences, and that there would be a good chance that I would go to prison," DeChristopher said.

But if that's the price - he says he's willing to pay it.

[Meg003]

au_fait

You really do have to wonder why these environmentalists don''t live like they are in the New Stone Age and set an example for us all. Let''s let Al Gore go first.

[nothappyatall]

A larger tank is near completion and two more tanks are planned. By 2008, the terminal will be able to handle 1.8 billion cubic feet of imported gas daily, more than double todays volume and enough fuel to serve 6.1 million homes, Dominion spokesman Daniel Donovan says.
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Theres roughly 100 million homes, so that entire terminal doubled wont be able to supply more than about 6%, and as the number of homes grows so too will demand. That means requiring a network of about 20-40 more of those terminals, each being a prime terrorist target too! no one wants a plant that if it blows can incinerate a vast swath- near THEIR town!

[nothappyatall]

"We have not been able to increase gas production for a decade," says energy consultant Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "U.S. gas productive capacity, like oil, is now in permanent decline."

At the same time, he says, the world "is awash with gas," most of it far from eager markets, and awaiting LNG''s emergence as "a second global energy business," rivaling oil.
According to the American Gas Association, 61 percent of U.S. households, or about 63 million, use natural gas, mostly for heating; the number is growing. In many parts of the country, 90 percent of new homes are fueled by gas, according to the association, which represents gas utilities.

Donald Norman, an economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, a private research group, says natural gas prices that have been in the range of $5 to $6 a thousand cubic feet in recent years are already pushing companies to relocate overseas.

If LNG supplies do not materialize as expected, these prices could become permanent or increase, forcing more U.S. businesses to flee abroad for cheaper fuel, Norman says.

[nothappyatall]

"The risks of a catastrophic accident ... is a real one. Far too little is known about the vulnerability of LNG terminals and ships to terrorist attacks," says Philip Warburg, president of the Conservation Law Foundation. The group has lobbied against putting LNG terminals in populated areas in the Northeast.

There is little disagreement about the need to import more LNG.

Traditionally, U.S. demand for natural gas has been met almost entirely from pipeline-accessible fields in the United States and Canada. Experts, however, say wells in the Gulf of Mexico are in decline, Canada''s production will fall off after 2015 and gas fields in the Rocky Mountain states and Alaska will not meet future demand.

By 2025, the United States is expected to need 31 trillion cubic feet of gas a year, a 38 percent increase, but North American supplies by then will be only 24 trillion cubic feet, 11 percent higher, the government says.

[nothappyatall]

LNG import terminals in Louisiana, Georgia and the Boston area also are expanding. Despite community opposition, more than 40 new LNG projects are proposed around the nation. About a dozen probably will be built, according to experts.

LNG imports still account for less than 3 percent of the 61 billion cubic feet of natural gas used every day in the United States. But LNG''s share could grow tenfold in the next 20 years, some analysts predict.

Still, there are concerns about how the fuel is shipped and stored.

LNG cannot explode and is not flammable as a liquid.

But a government study by the Sandia National Laboratory concludes terrorists could blast a large hole into a double-hulled LNG vessel. That would release millions of gallons of fuel that would quickly turn to gas and ignite.

The fire would be so intense that it could cause major injury and burn buildings one-third of a mile away. Within seconds, the fire could give second-degree burns to people who are a mile away.

[nothappyatall]

Those who think GAS will save us;

COVE POINT, Md. (Jan. 22, 2005) - Once or twice a week, a tanker unloads millions of gallons of frosty liquid at a terminal on the Chesapeake Bay, bringing to the United States a fuel that many economists believe will help temper energy prices in the coming decades.

as growing demand for natural gas outstrips North America''s conventional supplies, many experts view imports of LNG as the only way to head off decades of soaring prices for businesses and the tens of millions of households that rely on the fuel for heat and electricity.

While politicians talk of the need for greater U.S. energy independence, American consumers are expected to be relying increasingly on LNG imports from Algeria, Qatar, Russia and elsewhere.

If current trends continue, the United States "by far will be the largest consumer of LNG in the next decade," says Guy Caruso, head of the government''s Energy Information Administration.

A larger tank is near completion and two more tanks are planned. By 2008, the terminal will be able to handle 1.8 billion cubic feet of imported gas daily, more than double today''s volume and enough fuel to serve 6.1 million homes, Dominion spokesman Daniel Donovan says.

[nothappyatall]

and think the oil companies should be hit with very heavy tax and then let them wonder
arnoldbowers

Oh yeah, smart idea, TAX em, then they''ll do what ALL businesses do- just pass it along to us in higher PRICES, which as near monopolies all being taxed the same- they can easily do. Tax them $5 a gallon, then watch the price go from $4 a gallon to $4 a gallon plus $5 tax added into the price= $9 a gallon. Would be a nifty way for the feds to get more revenue out of us behind our backs- tax the oil co''s who add that into the price at the pump and the tax goes into the fed''s pockets and all we see are the oil co''s PRICES.

[nothappyatall]

normally dont agree with people using tactics like this guy did...we can''''''''t just let people be vigilantes. B
ramos937

What gets me is how stupid the auction people are, they never checked any of the bidder''s credentials or ID to see if they even had a dime to their name??
This total stranger to the auction people just walks in off the street and up and starts bidding with NO pre-check as to his finances or qualifications?
he doesn''t even look dressed like he has more than $500 to his name let alone $1.7 MILLION and yet they let this guy BID? LOL bet they change that policy fast next time.

[nothappyatall]

All of you who applaud this will be the first ones to **** and moan when gas and oil go back up ot over $4.

You all have such short memories and no intellectual capital.

Posted by joule18

Do the research and the math, if we use up every available drop of oil in this country''s holdings that we can drill for it STILL wont cover our annual use. We have a proven reserve of around 6% of the world''s oil, we USE about 20% for a net shortage of about 14% that has to be imported. Whether we import 14% or 16% isnt going to make a dam bit of difference because every year we use MORE- increasing population!
10 years from now we will import more despite cutbacks, efficiency ''alternative energy'' and all the rest. We have cars that get about 300% more mpg than their counterparts driven in the early 1970''s did, yet we burn more gasoline than ever instead of 1/3 less, why? = MORE PEOPLE = MORE CARS on the road = efficiency savings totally negated

[nothappyatall]

"While investigating and implementing solutions, we need oil. There isn''''t anything else."

Not true. We have plenty of gas.
abbe91

NOT true!, we are seeing increasingly larger numbers of LPG filled ships here to meet the growing DEMAND for MORE gas, we cant produce enough ourselves. The media has covered the NIMBY''s and the risks of terrorist strikes on the facilities that these ships offload into as being powderkegs ready to be hit bigtime.
People, power plants and businesses switching over to ''cheaper'' GAS has fueled price increases and needed MORE imported gas to keep up- do the homework! we are just switching oil out for gas, same problems, same shortages, same imports, worse danger for a huge explosion.