Castle Valley, Utah — MY husband, Brooke Williams, and I recently bought leasing rights to 1,120 acres of federal public lands near our home in Utah. The lease gives us the right to drill for oil or natural gas. We paid $1,680 for it, plus a $820 processing fee.

We put it on our credit card.

I hadn’t planned on leasing these lands when I attended an auction run by the federal Bureau of Land Management, a government agency that manages hundreds of millions of acres of public land across the West. I was there to protest the leasing of these lands to oil and gas companies planning to drill for fossil fuels.

But I ended up in the shorter line to get into the auction, the one for people registering as bidders. So I signed a registration form and was given the number 19. I followed the other bidders inside and found a seat in the front row.

My husband entered with the protesters, who were assigned to a separate space set aside for them.

As people filed in, a B.L.M. agent approached me and asked, “Are you aware that if you have misrepresented yourself as a legitimate bidder with an energy company you will be prosecuted and you could go to prison?”