Okay, boys and girls, get out your #2 pencils. (Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever seen a #1 pencil?) Here is your Civics quiz question of the day:

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is…

a. an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior.
b. the caretaker of more land and wildlife than any federal agency.
c. responsible for sustaining the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.
d. currently being criticized for restricting the ability of its own biologists to monitor wildlife damage caused by surging energy drilling on federal land.
e. all of the above.

If you answered “e,� then congratulations! You win my enduring admiration. (Don’t look so disappointed. Second prize was a quail hunting trip with Dick Cheney. Kevlar vest not included.) In case you were unaware, the BLM has apparently been shirking its official mission (see “c� above) and spending considerably more time on reviewing and granting drilling permits than on protecting the wildlife that increasingly appears to be adversely impacted by such activity. Blaine Harden reported on this trend in yesterday’s Washington Post, in an article entitled “Federal Wildlife Monitors Oversee a Boom in Drilling�:

PINEDALE, Wyo. — The Bureau of Land Management, caretaker of more land and wildlife than any federal agency, routinely restricts the ability of its own biologists to monitor wildlife damage caused by surging energy drilling on federal land, according to BLM officials and bureau documents.

The officials and documents say that by keeping many wildlife biologists out of the field doing paperwork on new drilling permits and that by diverting agency money intended for wildlife conservation to energy programs, the BLM has compromised its ability to deal with the environmental consequences of the drilling boom it is encouraging on public lands.

Here on the high sage plains of western Wyoming, often called the Serengeti of the West because of large migratory herds of deer and antelope, the Pinedale region has become one of the most productive and profitable natural gas fields on federal land in the Rockies. With the aggressive backing of the Bush administration, many members of Congress and the energy industry, at least a sixfold expansion in drilling is likely here in the coming decade.

Recent studies of mule deer and sage grouse, however, show steep declines in their numbers since the gas boom began here about five years ago: a 46 percent decline for mule deer and a 51 percent decline for breeding male sage grouse. Early results from a study of pronghorn antelope show that they, too, avoid the gas fields.

Yet as these findings have come in, the wildlife biologists in the Pinedale office of the BLM have rarely gone into the field to monitor harm to wildlife. more…

Yet again we are presented with evidence of the Bush Administration’s general disregard for the welfare of the environment and wildlife and greater concern for fattening the wallets of its corpulent corporate cronies. That such short-sightedness and greed has come to dominate the political landscape and devastate the natural landscape is a true tragedy and will no doubt endure as one of the many horrible legacies of the Bush era.

BONUS question: What are you going to do about it?