Utah Oil and Gas Leases Stir Criticism

Lease auctions this year in Utah and in Colorado have partially ringed Dinosaur National Monument, a rugged and remote area popular with river runners. That means, environmental critics said, that visitors will have to pass by oil and gas rigs to reach the park, which includes the scenic Green and Yampa river canyons.

"America's crown jewels are being shamelessly ringed by oil and gas development," said Stephen Bloch, a lawyer with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Banks said five parcels of land around the Dinosaur Monument were excluded from the sale.

The auction was lucrative for Utah and the federal government, which split the proceeds. The auction netted more than $6 million, the most a land auction had reaped since 1988.

Four groups dominated the recent bidding: Retamco Operating Inc., a Montana-based company; Tidewater Oil & Gas Co., of Colorado; Baseline Minerals Inc., an Arizona-based company; and the Utah-based Thames River LLC.

Retamco ranked as the biggest player in the most recent auction, paying $600,000 for leases in February alone. Its chairman, Stephen Gose of Montana, gave the maximum allowable contribution of $2,000 to Bush last year, as did his wife. Retamco placed fourth in the 2002 election cycle among Montana's top donors of unregulated "soft money," giving $7,050 to Republicans.

Gose said environmentalists were overreacting in criticizing the recent leasing of Utah lands.

"You need to be able to drill on state and federal lands," Gose said. "You don't harm it that much anyway."

Gose praised the Bush administration for making his company's oil and gas exploration work possible. He described the Clinton administration -- which had sought to protect the lands -- as "beholden to the extreme conservationists."