Interior Secretary Ken Salazar fired back at critics of the federal government's oil and gas leasing program on Tuesday, saying the oil industry was acting “like an arm of a political party.”

In a conference call with reporters to announce oil and gas lease sales on federal land for 2010, Salazar said the Bureau of Land Management's oil and gas leasing program this year has been “robust,” putting more than 2.7 million acres of land up for lease and generating $126 million in revenue. Four more leases are planned before year's end.


“But you wouldn't know it if you listened to the untruths coming out” of industry groups, Salazar said. “Trade groups for the oil and gas industry repeatedly launch attacks that have all the poison and assumptions of election-year politics.”

Salazar said energy company shareholders have two choices: let their companies sign on to industry efforts that “act like an arm of a political party,” or “engage constructively to find common-sense solutions” to improving the leasing process.

The verbal barrage was aimed at groups like the American Petroleum Institute, which has been critical of a number of moves taken by the Obama administration, including rescinding 77,000 acres of lease sales done late in the Bush administration and recommending shorter terms for future leases.