Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced that he’s leasing tracts of public land in Colorado and Utah to ExxonMobil and other oil corporations to pursue the extraction of oil from shale rock. Public lands in Wyoming could be next on the auction block.

Oil shale is an extreme and dirty source of crude. Its production is worse for the climate than production of normal oil and would sap precious regional water supplies. Exxon tried -- and failed at -- exploiting oil shale in the 1980s, degrading the environment and leaving high rates of unemployment in its wake.

Please join us in calling on Secretary Salazar to protect public lands and water by stopping oil industry exploitation.