Forest Service set to allow oil, gas drilling in — not on — Pawnee National Grassland

The U.S. Forest Service’s recent “no surface occupancy” stipulation for developing oil and gas leases on more than 100,000 acres within Pawnee National Grassland in northeastern Colorado is receiving a lukewarm reception from energy industry officials and environmental groups, especially as a policy precedent for drilling other federal lands. This requirement “will work for the majority of leases in the grasslands” because most of the Pawnee Grassland is accessible by horizontal drilling from adjacent private lands, said Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of government and public affairs for Western Energy Alliance, which supports the oil and gas industry. But the stipulation should not be considered a precedent for proposed oil and gas leases on other federal lands, she said. “Pawnee is a unique patchwork of federal, state and private lands,” Sgamma said. The approach “is not suitable for wholesale application elsewhere.”...more