Today, The Guardian’s US environment correspondent, Suzanne Goldenberg, reports on the case of activist Tim DeChristopher.
“An activist who disrupted a Bush administration auction for the oil and gas industry – bidding $1.8m (£1.1m) he did not have for the right to drill on remote areas of Utah – is due to be sentenced on Tuesday.
As Bidder No 70, Tim DeChristopher put in bogus bids and won drilling rights to 14 parcels of land at the auction, seen at the time as a last scramble by the Bush administration to open up wilderness lands to oil and gas extraction.
The action made DeChristopher a hero to some environmentalists, but he could face up to 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine following his conviction last March of defrauding the government.”
