February 16, 2016
Salt Lake City, UT
 
Today, over one hundred people erupted into song and disrupted the Utah Bureau of
Land Management’s (BLM) oil and gas lease sale in Salt Lake City, Utah. The
auction was then closed to the public as the entire audience was escorted outside.

Activist and author, Terry Tempest Williams, attended and purchased several
parcels totaling 1,751 acres in Grand County, Utah through a company she formed
called Tempest Exploration. One was an 800 acre parcel 14 miles from and within
view of Arches National Park that was leased for $1.50 / acre / year.  

The group of grassroots organizations, representing a broad-reaching alliance of
community members, packed and overflowed the auction room. They rallied and
marched outside, and then came into the auction, spontaneously singing songs as
the parcels were auctioned off until they were forced to leave.
  
After Williams bought the parcels, she was asked by a BLM official if this was “a
legitimate bid for energy development.”  
  
“Yes,” she replied. “You can’t define what energy is for us. Our energy
development is fueling a movement. Keep it in the ground.”
  
Today’s protest and Williams’ actions are yet another sign of the growing energy
and momentum of the “Keep It In The Ground” movement calling on President Obama to
define his climate legacy by stopping all new fossil fuel leases on public lands
and oceans.
 
In recent months, local residents and activists in Utah and in states across the
country have protested outside BLM fossil fuel auctions. Since November, in
response to protests, the BLM has canceled oil and gas leasing auctions in Utah,
Montana, and Washington, DC, and this strategy has already gained the attention of
leaders in Congress, in the Obama Administration, and on the 2016 campaign trail.
  
“The protests of today's auction are another sign that the days of un-resisted
fossil fuel development are over,” said Tim DeChristopher, who was arrested and
imprisoned for 21 months for disrupting a BLM auction in 2008. “The public is
clearly against the leasing of fossil fuels on public lands, and they are charting
a path for political leaders to follow.”