A federal judge in Colorado has dismissed a conservation group’s challenge to federal drilling permits for extracting publicly owned oil and gas from wells on adjacent private and state lands.
Judge Daniel Domenico on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado said the Center for Biological Diversity lacked standing to bring its case challenging the Interior Department’s approval of so-called Fee/Fee/Fed wells in Colorado’s Pawnee National Grassland.
The type of extraction associated with these wells involves boring horizontally beneath the surface of state or private land — sometimes across miles — to tap federal oil and gas.
The Center for Biological Diversity had alleged that the proliferation of oil and gas development in northeastern Colorado — without the federal government imposing measures to mitigate environmental harm — impaired its members’ enjoyment of the grassland.
