West Virginian of the Week: Tim DeChristopher

He wandered into a Bureau of Land Management auction of public lands for oil drilling and walked out . . . er, was escorted out . . . holding rights, although not the title, to 22,000 acres of southern Utah. Not that he has the money to acquire title, but that really wasn't his point. DeChristopher didn't attend the auction to accumulate property or drilling rights. He was merely there in a supremely simple act of civil disobedience to drive up prices and throw a spotlight on a characteristically duplicitous sell-off of public lands by the Bush administration, which carefully delayed the announcement of the auction until election day so as to avoid any electoral fallout for Republicans (That worked well, didn't it?).

Tim DeChristopher is a native West Virginian who along with his mother founded the West Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club and he frequently cites lessons learned here about corporate abuse of the land as inspiration for his advocacy. The success of Tim DeChristopher's efforts in Utah can be measured by the extensive media attention his crashing of the BLM auction has generated. Stories can be found in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Daily Show to name just a few major news outlets that have run the story.

You can read more about DeChristopher and see an interview at http://www.bidder70.org/, where you can also donate to his legal defense.