Drilling the heart out of the West

In the past five years, the Bush administration has leased 35 million acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling — the equivalent of 15 Yellowstone National Parks.

It’s wrecking the West.

It’s violating the law — courts have held the government ignored the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement to weigh environmental consequences of the leases.

And this policy isn’t producing energy independence. The U.S. Geological Survey’s rough inventory for the entire West adds up to about 8 billion barrels of oil.