Earlier this week The Wilderness Society and the National Parks Conservation Association announced that more than 7,600 acres of oil and gas leases were permanently retired in the Badger-Two Medicine area near Glacier National Park. Moncrief Oil and Gas Master, LLC and The Wilderness Society announced that they reached an out-of-court settlement resulting in the permanent retirement.
The 7,640-acre Moncrief Oil lease, located on the Lewis and Clark National Forest, was first issued in 1982, and has been held by Moncrief for more than three decades. Moncrief’s lease was cancelled by the Department of Interior in early 2017. This action was challenged in the DC District Court and overturned, with the lease reinstated in June 2019. The district court’s ruling and lease reinstatement had been appealed by conservation, sportsmen, and Blackfeet interests and their appeal was pending before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals when the settlement was reached.
The 132,000 acre Badger-Two Medicine area has had a series of lease retirements over the past decade. In 2016, Devon Energy agreed that in return for sunk costs it would voluntarily relinquish its 15 leases within the Badger Two Medicine area (totaling 23,000 acres).
With today’s announcement on the relinquishment of Moncrief’s lease, there remains only one oil and gas leaseholder in the Badger Two Medicine area, Solenex LLC. The company’s 6,200 acre lease was cancelled by the government in 2016, but reinstated in 2018 after the D.C. District Court ruled for Solenex. This case is currently in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.
Located between Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and the Blackfeet Indian reservation, the Badger-Two Medicine Area is within an area of Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front that Congress withdrew from future oil and gas leasing in 2006.
Jeff
HikinginGlacier.com
TetonHikingTrails.com
RockyMountainHikingTrails.com
HikingintheSmokys.com
Ramble On: A History of Hiking
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