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On election day, the Bureau of Land Management in Utah quietly announced its last round of oil and gas lease sales for the year. On Dec. 19, close to 400,000 acres of America's redrock wilderness -- much of it adjacent to Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument -- were to be sold for drilling to the highest bidders. Public outcry was fierce. The National Park Service had not been consulted, as it usually was, and much of the land listed for auction had long been proposed for wilderness protection. The BLM succumbed to the pressure and met with the National Park Service, which asked that 93 oil and gas leases be removed from the list. The BLM backed off 22 parcels, and then later deferred other leases in sensitive areas. From a cynical perspective, the lease sale announcement could be seen as a fire the BLM set intentionally around the edges of Utah's most precious natural treasures, knowing it could extinguish the flames, emerge as a reasonable land steward and still get what its current boss, the Bush administration, wants -- more and more public land in the American West to exploit.

A high-level fight has erupted within the Interior Department between the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service over plans to sell leases for oil and gas drilling near Arches, Canyonlands and Dinosaur National Monument. The Park Service wants to delay the Dec. 19 lease sales. The BLM has refused to do so. "We're not anti-oil and gas but we're very much pro-park," said Denver-based Park Service regional director Mike Snyder. "I'm not saying not to put those up for a lease sale. I'm just asking they wait until the next quarter."

Federal investigators say government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies, and received improper gifts. The alleged transgressions involve 13 Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants and having sexual relationships with - and accepting golf, ski trips and dinners from - oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department's Inspector General.