Bush administration officials are rushing to implement new rules and change old ones before they pack up and leave Washington to a new president.

The big winners are oil and gas extractors, polluting industries such as power plants, off-road-vehicle users and mines that are now restricted by regulations protecting the environment. The losers are the West's wildlife, archaeological treasures, fragile forests and deserts and all Americans who want to enjoy the quiet beauty of public lands, breathe clean air and drink clean water.

In Utah, the Bureau of Land Management has worked feverishly to get six new management plans i n place that will open up millions of acres, including thousands of acres of wilderness-quality public land, to drilling and off-road-vehicle use.

The hurried-up plans, five of which were released last week, are an eleventh-hour effort of Bush's BLM to eliminate federal protections for Utah's redrock treasures and give extraction industries and motorized recreationists a virtual free hand.

The rules for the Moab, Kanab, Vernal, Richfield and Price BLM districts are final; the Monticello plan awaits state review. Adhering to the Bush directive to overcome "obstacles to drilling," including environmental-protection laws, wildlife concerns and proximity to national parks, the plans will oversee the degradation of Utah's public lands for at least a decade. Even the Environmental Protection Agency has been critical, and the Government Accountability Office questions why the BLM is bent on selling more leases when energy companies have developed few of the leases they already have.

The BLM announced Tuesday a December sale of oil and gas leases on 360,000 acres of Utah public lands. Earlier, the agency indicated the sale would include parcels in Nine Mile Canyon, where hundreds of ancient drawings are already threatened by nearby drilling; in Desolation Canyon; and areas near Dinosaur National Monument. But the BLM refused Tuesday to give details, so it's unknown whether the sale will include more wilderness-quality land or less.

Other rules would lower standards for drinking water, allow power plants to spew millions of tons more CO2 into the atmosphere and let oil refineries, chemical factories and other industrial plants increase harmful emissions.

These rule changes will only add to the catastrophic effects of Bush's pro-industry legacy of environmental destruction and disregard for the future of the planet.