Normally we expect to have organized labor in favor of developing big projects, but the “18,000-member union has sent a formal protest to the Bureau of Land Management concerning oil and gas leasing in Wyoming.”
Specifically, the AFL-CIO is protesting the leasing of 200,000 acre Adobe Town area in Sweetwater County near Rock Springs.
This is another indication how much oil and gas development of the West is out of control, spoiling the West on a massive scale.
If you love the West, please contact your newly elected members of Congress.
Read Labor’s Love of the Outdoors in the Casper Star Tribune. By Jeff Gearino.
I should add that it’s folks like this who can get the attention of Wyoming’s not-very-conservation-minded Governor, Democrat Dave Freudenthal.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.
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A very positive position, to be sure. It wasn’t all that long ago that the Teamsters came out in favor of opening the Arctic NWR to oil exploration — but only after a public relations blitz by Republican operatives.
I wouldn’t count very much on Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal. He’s made a lot of paper moves that look like he’s a supporter of conservation, but his actual actions regarding wolves, bears, and water quality (i.e., his conflict with Montana over Montana’s stricter water quality standards for waters coming out of Wyoming) tell the tale that he knows where his votes come from–from the various industries. He’s delivered for those industries, and he was rewarded with 70% of the vote in the recent election.