UT Agency Sends Refunds To Oil Companies For Leases w/i Bears Ears Boundaries - A Whole $11,800
A Utah agency that came under fire last year for leasing land in the original boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument has refunded fees to the two oil and gas companies involved in the deal.
Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration Director David Ure approved a refund last month of the leasing bonuses, first-year rental costs and filing fees charged for the nearly 2,000 acres of trust land leased to Kirkwood Oil and Gas and 640 acres leased to John Wolcott. The parcels were located about 10 miles north of Bluff and partially overlapped with the eastern boundary of Bears Ears before President Donald Trump slashed the monument’s size in 2017.
The lease sale, which occurred just weeks before the November election, raised $11,800 for Utah’s schoolchildren, but environmental groups worried it would complicate a future land swap with the federal government if President Joe Biden reverses Trump’s monument cuts.
On his first day in office in January, Biden initiated a 60-day review of the monument boundaries. SITLA approved the refunds several weeks later, and Deena Loyola, the agency’s information officer, said the SITLA leases are currently “on hold as the new administration conducts its monument review.”
EDIT
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/03/10/utah-agency-reverses/
