The Bush administration is making a last minute push to open up huge tracts of lands near national parks to oil and gas exploration. According to The New York Times, the Bureau of Land Management published new maps Nov. 4 outlining areas that will be up for auction on Dec. 19 — just 32 days before Bush leaves office. BLM abruptly decided to auction land near or adjacent to Dinosaur National Monument, Arches National Park, and Canyonlands National Park, all of which are in Utah. BLM did not consult with the National Park Service which, like BLM, is a division of the Department of the Interior: The tracts will be sold at auction on Dec. 19, the last lease sale before President Bush leaves office a month later. The new leases were added after a map of the proposed tracts was given to the National Park Service for comment this fall. The proximity of industrial activity concerns park managers, who worry about the impact on the air, water and wildlife within the park, as well as the potential for noise, said Michael D. Snyder, a regional director of the Park Service who is based in Denver. The Park Service is usually given one to three months to comment on leases, Mr. Snyder added. "This is the first time," he said, "where we have not had sufficient opportunity to comment." In the coming days, the Bush administration may see to it that the fossil fuel industry has even more fun at the environment's expense. BLM is also finalizing plans to open up lands in the West to oil shale development — a process by which liquid oil is extracted from solid rock. According to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, the oil shale leasing program will open up more than 2 million acres of land to development. "Oil shale development presents serious risks of adverse environmental effects — both at the extraction stage, and because refining oil shale into usable product generates substantially higher lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than conventional petroleum sources and requires large amounts of water," according to the Committee. Rules governing the leasing program have already been cleared by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — the clearinghouse for government regulations. OIRA reviewed and approved the rule in just four days. The average review time for rules reviewed by OIRA in 2008 is 62 days.