Half Million Acres on Oil Auction Block as Greens Fear Land Rush

The Interior Department is set to auction oil and gas drilling rights to an area of federal land roughly twice the size of Los Angeles over the next six weeks, as part of its first oil and gas lease sales since March.

Environmental groups are calling the lease upcoming lease sales a last-minute land rush for the oil industry prior to the November election. But oil industry group say the auctions are necessary to ensure the security of future jobs.

The Bureau of Land Management, part of Interior, will begin a series of nine oil and gas lease sales nationwide ...