The Marshall Fire: $2 billion in losses. Cameron Peak: $127 million suppression. Yet the BLM is proposing the largest Colorado lease sale since 2018 – 103 parcels, 72,848 acres, including parcels near Aurora Reservoir and water purification facilities.
When 40% of December’s Colorado sale parcels received no bids, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act forced a replacement sale in January. Result: zero competitive bids again. The market is speaking. Nobody’s listening.
The procedural threat makes it worse. In January 2025, Congressman Huffman brokered a secret settlement at Point Reyes National Seashore that overrode a completed NEPA process – $30 million from The Nature Conservancy, NDAs silencing affected families, no public hearings. This allows any corporation – oil, gas, mineral or conservation – to gain public land leases without Congressional approval, NEPA studies or public input.
If this template holds, legal challenges to Colorado drilling near schools and reservoirs can be “settled” behind closed doors, with no Colorado voice. Total federal lease revenue: $7.6 billion. One wildfire: $95 to $164 billion. EVs displaced 1.3 million barrels per day in 2024. Oil is a losing bet.
Sign the National Petition: https://www.vote-roar.com/petitions
Tell Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper: demand democratic process.
Gregory Burgess
San Rafael, California
