At the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC)‘s 2016 meeting in Denver, Colorado this week, a representative from a prominent oil and gas lobbying group advocated that auctions of federal lands should happen online “eBay”-style — a clear attempt to shut the public out of the bidding process for fossil fuel leases on public lands.

Speaking on public lands issues in front of IOGCC‘s public lands committee, Kathleen Sgamma — Western Energy Alliance’s (WEA) vice president of governmental affairs — compared environmental groups’ Keep It In The Ground campaign actions at U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) bids to a “circus.” Sgamma said WEA was in contact with both BLM and Congressional members to push the auctions out of the public sphere and onto the internet.

DeSmog, which attended the IOGCC meeting, recorded the presentation and has published it online.

Sgamma opened her statement on the Keep It In The Ground “circus” by pointing to the fact that BLM has already compared the activism, in testimony delivered to Congress (beginning at 54:30) on March 23, 2016, with the right-wing militia that occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge’s public lands plot in Oregon.

Sgamma also revealed that WEA has a counter campaign that it will launch soon to oppose Keep It In The Ground.

Here is a partial transcript of Sgamma’s statement (beginning at about 19:55 in the audio):

So Western Energy Alliance is planning some counter-efforts with Keep It In The Ground which we’ll be announcing probably later this month. We’ve also been working with BLM and Congress to say ‘Let’s just get rid of this circus, let’s just have online auctions. eBay is out there, it can be done.’

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