An environmental activist’s trial date has finally been set by a US district judge. Arrested after bidding – with no intention of paying – on federal oil and gas leases worth $1.8 million, Tim DeChristopher, a 28-year-old economics student, will face a three-day jury trial on 21 June. The two charges could land him in prison for a total of 10 years.
It all began on 19 December 2008, at a protest against an auction by the US Government’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of drilling rights for oil and gas development on parcels of national park land. Environmental groups had earlier filed lawsuits against the BLM to stop the auctioning of public land to environmentally destructive companies. This had helped to defer the auction of about 53,000 hectares of land, but left an estimated 93,000 hectares still for sale. Stephen Bloch of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance had described the auction as a ‘fire sale’ and ‘the Bush Administration’s last great gift to the oil and gas industry’.
