The U.S. Forest Service released a proposal that would fast-track fracking and drilling across the country’s 192 million acres of national forests and grasslands.

The proposed rule would reduce requirements that the Forest Service approve oil and gas leasing plans, sidestep National Environmental Policy Act review, and prevent public involvement before the public lands are leased out for fossil-fuel extraction.

“This proposal would basically make the Forest Service a rubber stamp for the fossil fuel industry,” said Michael Saul, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We face accelerating climate change, fire and drought, and the last thing we should be doing is making it easier to auction off our irreplaceable national forests for destructive drilling and fracking.”

The Forest Service proposal undermines a key requirement that it have the last word on national leasing decisions, conflicting with its congressional mandate.

The agency says the proposed rule would align its leasing methods with the Bureau of Land Management’s, but the BLM’s methods have been struck down by a federal court because they prevent public input.

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That incongruity stretches far beyond this spot. Clark, who works for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, is pointing out Bureau of Land Management parcels that are being developed for oil and gas near Canyonlands National Park, Dead Horse Point State Park and some of the other scenic areas that have made nearby Moab an outdoor recreation mecca.

Fidelity Exploration & Production Company has 31 oil wells here, most drilled in recent years. Though the National Park Service and BLM credit Fidelity with keeping its facilities as low-impact as possible, many feel the development illustrates why the BLM should plan much more carefully where and how drilling is allowed. “This is one of the most spectacular places on the planet,” Clark argues. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to allow oil companies to disturb this landscape.”

Hoping to strike a better balance, in August, the BLM released a draft “master leasing plan” for nearly 800,000 federal acres here that would significantly curtail future development near national parks, trails and other sensitive sites.

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