Case Study: Challenges to Right to Develop
Recently federal agencies that manage millions of acres of lands in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana and the San Juan Basin in New Mexico and Colorado have rendered decisions amending land use plans to provide for development of tens of thousands of oil and gas wells in those regions. We are litigating those cases for clients such as BP, Burlington, ConocoPhillips, Marathon, and Williams in U.S. District Courts in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia. Major issues addressed in that litigation include the potential water and air effects expected in projected development of that magnitude. See, e.g., See, e.g., Northern Plains Res. Council v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 298 F. Supp. 2d 1017 (D. Mont. 2003), aff’d, 107 Fed. Appx. 166, 2004 WL 1923587 (9th Cir. 2004); San Juan Citizens Alliance et al. v. Norton et al., CV-04-1038 (D.N.M.); Western Organization of Resource Councils et al. v. Clarke et al., No. 04-CV-0018 (D. Wyo.); San Juan Citizens Alliance et al. v. Norton et al., No. 00-F-379 (D. Colo.).
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