Bailing out Bidder 70

Tim DeChristopher and Utah stand up to Big Oil 4

I’ve never been big on rules.

Neither, apparently, is Tim DeChristopher. He’s the young activist who just completely derailed the Bush administration’s plans to sell more of our public lands to the oil companies.

He sat in the lease sale in Salt Lake City on Dec. 19 and “bought” 22,500 acres of public lands right out from under the suits from Chevron and Exxon.

One small problem—Tim doesn’t actually have the money. It almost doesn’t matter, though, because he’s monkeywrenched the process so thoroughly that they won’t be able to conduct another sale until after the Obama administration takes over—and thus hopefully never.

Tim needs to raise $45,000 by this Friday, Jan. 9, in order to avoid fraud charges and put the sale out of reach to the Bush administration and their oily friends. He’s already raised almost half.

I, for one, will be supporting Tim DeChristoper, Bidder 70, with a tax-deductible contribution via the Center for Water Advocacy in Moab, Utah.

He deserves thanks for reminding all of us that direct action still gets the goods!

Steve Kretzmann is the Founder and Director of Oil Change International. He has worked on policy and movement building surrounding energy issues and the global oil industry for the last nineteen years. He served as the environmental advisor to Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People in Nigeria and recently testified in the US Congress on the impacts of the oil industry in Nigeria.

He is currently campaigning for climate justice an end to fossil fuel subsidies, particularly via the World Bank.

Related Stories

Advertisement
Advertisement

  1. archigeek Posted 3:07 am
    07 Jan 2009

    WOW...This monkeywrenching hell-raiser has got a PAIR! More than can be attributed to the craven corporate lackeys in Congress who let the the war criminals and traitors George W. Bush and Dick Cheney off the hook. My hat is off to this man.

    The mellotron is your friend.

    Permalink

  2. Erik Hoffner's avatar

    Erik Hoffner Posted 4:23 am
    07 Jan 2009

    DNYes, this is a great eg of individual action, grassroots style. Amy Goodman interviewed him recently, and he gave a very good account of his actions:
    http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/22/posing_as_a_bidder ...
    He's ready to go to jail if need be.
    Erik

    The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

    Permalink

  3. Angelsnecropolis Posted 6:12 am
    07 Jan 2009

    What next?I'll happily contribute but I want to know what he plans to do with 22k acres of land once everyone else has bought it for him.

    Permalink

  4. Erik Hoffner's avatar

    Erik Hoffner Posted 6:48 am
    12 Jan 2009

    he/we did itTim has officially now raised the $45K and then some, and now it's a question of whether the BLM will accept the money. If yes, then the question of what to do with the land going forward, but Tim's written a pretty great letter about the situation:
    http://www.bidder70.org/articles/view/136621/
    Go grassroots,
    Erik

    The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

    Permalink

Add a Comment

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Hello, Visitor!    Why not register?

Viewed
More
Commented
More
Advertisement