http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/front/story/1959819p-2268725c.htmlOil companies are leasing more land than allowed by federal law
May 31, 2004
DAVID PACE Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A single New Mexico family and a dozen big oil companies, including one once headed by Commerce Secretary Don Evans, now control one-quarter of all federal lands leased for oil and gas development in the continental United States despite a law intended to prevent such concentration, federal records show.
Since 1997, mainly as a result of mergers and acquisitions, six companies have exceeded the legal limit of 246,080 acres in lease holdings on public lands in states other than Alaska. But the Bureau of Land Management, in charge of enforcing the 1920 law, has chosen to extend compliance deadlines for years.
In fact, an Associated Press computer analysis found the Interior Department agency permitted companies it knew were in violation of the law in Wyoming to continue to acquire thousands of acres of new oil and gas leases in that state. The bureau has given the companies additional years to comply.
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"It's clear from the data that there is no reason for the Bush administration to issue leases on America's last remaining wild public lands, other than as a favor to their most generous political patrons," said Dave Alberswerth, public lands director for the Wilderness Society.
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Let's see: Cheney, the Yates family, Tom Brown Inc, and Don Evans are all involved.