SALT LAKE CITY -- The Bureau of Land Management has rejected parcels for oil and gas drilling that would have marred views from Arches National Park and invade nearby bighorn sheep habitat.

Henri Bisson, the BLM's acting Utah director, said Friday his agency also acted to protect the Utah prairie dog, a federally listed endangered species, by turning down other drilling parcels in southern Utah.

Those parcels will not be among the 334,000 acres of public land the BLM plans to auction Aug. 15 at a quarterly lease sale.

Bisson mentioned the rejections Friday during a news conference-turned lengthy discourse on oil and gas development. Bisson called a news conference to defend his agency's mission to open public lands for energy development and criticized environmental groups for filing objections.

"There were protests on 33 of the last 34 lease sales" in Utah, Bisson said. "In some cases up to 70 percent of the nominated lands have been protested."

Yet conservation groups challenge only a fraction of the parcels offered up in any lease auction, while local governments and rafting and guiding businesses file other protests, said Stephen Bloch, a staff lawyer for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Block said many of the protests in the auctions cited by Bisson were actually filed by oil and gas companies whose nominations for drilling parcels were rejected.

Bisson, Alaska's BLM chief, is not a candidate for Utah BLM director, agency spokeswoman Adrienne Babbitt said. Bisson is acting until the bureau selects a replacement for Sally Wisely, who left the Utah post to become Colorado's BLM director.

According to Bloch, Bisson is spending his time in Utah under "specific instructions from BLM Director Kathleen Clarke to speed up oil and gas leasing."

Bisson said oil and gas drilling in Utah is exploding, a fact he promoted. He pointed especially to drilling in central Utah, a region that has long frustrated exploration efforts of major oil companies.

In 2004, tiny Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Wolverine Gas & Oil Corp. discovered an oil field near Sigurd, Utah, that is producing about 4,800 barrels a month of sweet light crude.

"Since then, interest in central Utah has exploded," Bisson said. "BLM has sold and issued nearly one million acres of oil and gas leases in its central Utah field offices since the 2004 discovery. In our upcoming August sale, 80 percent of the offering is in central Utah."

Bisson said the BLM rejected one industry-nominated drilling parcel within four miles of Delicate Arch. It was rejected because it was clearly within view of southern Utah's most prominent landmark, he said.

BLM turned down nine other drilling parcels in that region, east of Arches National Park, because they interfered with bighorn sheep habitat, lambing grounds or a migration corridor, he said.

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