How the West is Sold

In Colorado, Christian Science Monitor reporter Amanda Paulson finds a groundswell of opposition -- evidence that "the West no longer embraces energy booms the way it used to." And booming it is, thanks to Bush administration policies aimed at expediting leases. "While federal policy used to limit companies to one well pad for every 640 acres, the BLM under departing Interior Secretary Gale Norton has been allowing a pad for every 40 acres. On some private land, Colorado has allowed one on every 10," Paulson reports. When the Bureau of Land Management recently sold off 150,000 acres last month, the city of Grand Junction was so concerned about water contamination that it bid on some of the parcels itself. It lost.