Map of the oil lease areas in Utah auctioned off to oil and gas companies in December of 2008. (image: conservationnext.com)

As reported by the Deseret News on Thursday, The Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States (IPAMS) has released a report criticizing the withdrawal of Utah oil drilling leases by the Department of the Interior.

The 77 leases, granted in the closing hours of the Bush administration, were re-evaluated by the Interior Department under Obama appointee Ken Salazar, who canceled eight of the leases and indefinitely held another 52 for further review.

According to IPAMS’ report, the initial surveys thoroughly met all stipulations for environmental protection on the lease sites, many of which lie in the vicinity of National Parks such as Arches and Canyonlands. The report claims there is “no evidence” to support the withdrawal of any of the parcels on environmental or procedural grounds, and cites a “’lack of regard’ for the seven-year public planning process that produced the Resource Management Plans.”

The auction for the leases was also the site of a protest by environmental activist Tim DeChristopher, who bid a sham $1.8 million for 22,500 acres to keep them off of the market, leading a spokeswoman for IPAMS to cry “politics.”

Tim DeChristopher. (image: huffingtonpost.com)

Last year, Tim DeChristopher disrupted a U.S. Bureau of Land Management oil lease auction by placing bids he couldn’t honor.  He did this to throw a wrench into oil exploration and drilling, and in the process  “won” 22,500 acres he couldn’t pay for, taking them at least temporarily off the market, and drove up prices for other parcels.

DeChristopher now faces trial on felony charges of interfering with a government auction and making false representations. As the Associated Press reported Monday, his lawyers have planned a novel defense: they intend to put global warming on trial.  They are planning a variation on the venerable “necessity” defense, which makes it a defense to criminal liability that “(1) the defendant acted to avoid a significant risk of harm; (2) no adequate lawful means could have been used to escape the harm; and (3) the harm avoided was greater than that caused by breaking the law.” His lawyers’ argument is that DeChristoper bid illegally to save us from climate change.

As a legal tactic, it’s almost certain to fail—the necessity defense has rarely been successful in civil disobedience cases. It falters on two grounds:
•    There are lawful alternatives to protest a law or government action—such as by staging a protest, writing to elected representatives, or filing a lawsuit. Indeed, Utah oil leases have been successfully blocked by lawsuits brought by environmental groups.
•    Second, there usually has to be a strong element of immediacy to the harm. The classic example is, cold and freezing in the woods, you may break into a cabin in search of food and shelter.

However, what about as a protest tactic? Even in losing, if DeChristopher can get a federal judge to allow his legal team to present evidence that global warming poses a significant harm justifying illegal acts, that’s a victory. Global warming will have been debated in federal court as a threat requiring extraordinary action, at least potentially on a par in terms of seriousness and urgency with the risk of freezing or starving, lost alone in the woods. That is a powerful metaphor or symbolic statement for environmentalists, even if it doesn’t spare DeChristoper jail time.