Environmentalist Sabotages Oil Lease Auction

"An environmental activist tainted an auction of oil and gas drilling leases Friday by bidding up parcels of land by hundreds of thousands of dollars without any intention of paying for them, a federal official said.

The process was thrown into chaos and the bidding halted for a time before the sale of 132 parcels covering 164,000 acres was concluded.

"He's tainted the entire auction," said Kent Hoffman, deputy state director for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Utah.

Buyers will have 10 days to reconsider and withdraw their bids, Hoffman said.

The FBI was questioning a man who registered for the auction as Tim DeChristopher of Salt Lake City, said the bureau's Utah Energy Team Leader Terry Catlin.

DeChristopher won the bidding on 13 parcels, auction records show, and drove up the price of several other pieces of land.

He snapped up 22,500 acres of land around Arches and Canyonlands parks but said he could afford to pay for only a few of those acres. He owes $1.7 million on all of his leases.

DeChristopher, a 27-year-old University of Utah economics student, said his plan was to disrupt the auction, and he feels he accomplished his goal.

"I thought I could be effective by making bids, driving up prices for others and winning some bids myself," he said.

DeChristopher, who says he expects to be charged, was released and the case is being referred to the U.S. attorney's office."

ORIGINAL SOURCE: Yahoo! News