Thursday, May 9, 2019

Trump's BLM to Open 1 Million Acres for Oil Drilling

Last week the Trump Administration released its draft plan to open over a million acres in Central California to oil drilling and fracking. The Bureau of Land management oversees a vast region of public lands that the agency says has high resource potential, including lands near national forests and monuments. The BLM has not leased any public land in California for oil extraction since 2013, after a judge ruled the bureau had violated the federal environmental laws by not considering the hazards of fracking. Environmental groups, meanwhile, are gearing up for a fight. Vic Bedoian reports from Fresno.