Oil Company Sues to Regain Drilling Rights in National Forest

Saturday, March 20, 2010
Hoback Canyon, Bridger-Teton National Forest (photo: National Forest Service)

Oil company Stanley Energy wants to drill for petroleum in Bridger-Teton National Forest, located in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Having lost the leases it gained from the Bush administration in 2005 and 2006, Stanley Energy is now suing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) which cancelled the arrangement. BLM and the Department of the Interior under President Barack Obama have said the leases are likely to run afoul with environmental concerns, and Congress too is opposed to the drilling across 44,720 acres. BLM has offered to refund the company the money that it paid for the leases ($823,000), but Stanley Energy executives prefer the profits that can be gained from extracting the oil beneath Bridger-Teton.

 
Bridger-Teton is also in the news this year because it has been chosen as the source for the 2010 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Oil Firm Demands Leases in National Forest (by Sonya Angelica Diehn, Courthouse News Service)
Stanley Energy v. Bureau of Land Management (U.S. District Court, Wyoming)
Bridger-Teton National Forest (U.S. Forest Service)

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