Yea! That's what I want to hear!! Way to go, Obama!

Opening Utah's magnificent wildlands for oil and gas exploration has nothing to do with energy security or independence. Despite the extremely poor prospects of finding enough oil and gas to make a net gain in energy at all, and a profit only at high prices, the Bureau of Land Management is approving invasive exploration activities in many lands of high natural and scenic values: for example, the Lockhart Basin, Hatch Point, Dome Plateau, Goldbar Rim and others. Even Wildlife Refuges, protected for  some wildlife values, are not protected from oil and gas exploration and production: 27% of the nation's 575 refuges have been either explored, drilled and exploited, or laced with pipelines. 105 refuges contain a total of 4,406 oil and gas wells, 1,806 currently active. Production from these wells is a tiny proportion of total U.S. production, itself only 30% or so of consumption.

At the request of Congress, the USGS performed a qualitative assessment of oil and gas potential in National Monuments approved and expanded under the Clinton Administration, which did close them to exploration/production. Of 19 monuments, only 4 had any prospects, and those for only modest amounts of oil and gas with no relevance to energy independence.

In contrast, the oil industry claims undiscovered reserves of as much as 4 billion barrels of oil in and adjacent to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The whole region contains only 24 geologically favorable oil and gas sites, all of which have been explored for many years. One site has trickled out 25 million barrels of oil since its 1964 discovery, barely more than one day of current consumption over 35 years.

Reckless opening of valuable natural lands to energy exploration can only worsen the nation's energy position. Hopefully, Obama will reverse this trend.

Information from: The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery