POGAM Submits Brief to ANF
This week, the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association (POGAM) submitted to Allegheny National Forest (ANF) planners a thorough legal brief on the scope and limitations of the statutory and regulatory authority available to the US Forest Service in its relationship with private oil and gas mineral owners in the Allegheny National Forest. POGAM prepared the legal brief to assist ANF staff to meet their obligations to complete work on the 2007 ANF Land Resources Management Plan.
“We decided to develop a rigorous legal analysis of the statutory and regulatory authority available to the US Forest Service in its relationship with oil and gas operators to help ANF staff complete work on two significant tasks required by the Forest Service Chief’s 2008 administrative appeal decision on the 2007 ANF Forest Plan,” POGAM president Stephen Rhoads explains.
The ANF Administrative Appeal Decision found several procedural and substantive errors in the 2007 ANF Forest Plan’s treatment of privately-owned oil and gas estates, and the Forest Service Chief instructed the ANF to clarify its authority to manage oil and gas activities by:
identifying the roles and responsibilities of the Forest Service, State of Pennsylvania and private oil and gas operators in protecting surface resources during oil and gas development; and
distinguishing between reserved and outstanding private mineral estates and how the Forest Service’s management role may vary depending upon language in the individual deeds and the US Department of Agriculture Secretary’s rules and regulations.
“The Forest Service cannot carry out these tasks without a detailed understanding of the respective property rights of the Forest Service as the surface owner and the private mineral estate owners,” Rhoads states in a letter transmitting the legal brief to Leann Marten, ANF supervisor.
POGAM’s legal brief concludes that in the Allegheny National Forest:
a privately-owned severed mineral estate is the dominant estate in land;
the Forest Service has a limited non-regulatory role in seeking accommodations to address surface estate issues when severed private oil and gas rights are exercised; and
the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act do not apply to the exercise of severed private oil and gas property rights in the ANF.
“Oil and gas operators have a long-standing relationship with the ANF land managers that is both positive and mutually beneficial, and we hope that the final Forest Plan will recognize and reinforce that relationship,” Rhoads observes.
“Our hope is that the Forest Service will recognize its limited rights and duties with respect to outstanding and reserved oil and gas rights when it completes its work on the Forest Plan revisions, and we urge the Forest Service to not impose unwarranted regulatory burdens and delays on lawful private oil and gas activities in the Allegheny National Forest.”
More than 90 percent of the oil and gas property rights beneath the Allegheny National Forest are privately owned. The subsurface underlying the Allegheny National Forest contains substantial quantities of oil and gas resources that satisfy critical demands for domestic energy supply and production.
The Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association is a trade association that represents independent producers and related companies that find and develop the Commonwealth’s indigenous natural gas and crude oil reserves. POGAM member companies own and develop outstanding and reserved oil and gas rights underlying land within the proclamation boundaries of the Allegheny National Forest. The association and its member companies stand ready to work cooperatively with the US Forest Service in coordination with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to ensure that our activities are carried out in an efficient and environmentally sensitive manner.
POGAM retained the Washington, DC law firm of Crowell and Moring LLP to prepare the legal brief on its behalf.
“We decided to develop a rigorous legal analysis of the statutory and regulatory authority available to the US Forest Service in its relationship with oil and gas operators to help ANF staff complete work on two significant tasks required by the Forest Service Chief’s 2008 administrative appeal decision on the 2007 ANF Forest Plan,” POGAM president Stephen Rhoads explains.
The ANF Administrative Appeal Decision found several procedural and substantive errors in the 2007 ANF Forest Plan’s treatment of privately-owned oil and gas estates, and the Forest Service Chief instructed the ANF to clarify its authority to manage oil and gas activities by:
identifying the roles and responsibilities of the Forest Service, State of Pennsylvania and private oil and gas operators in protecting surface resources during oil and gas development; and
distinguishing between reserved and outstanding private mineral estates and how the Forest Service’s management role may vary depending upon language in the individual deeds and the US Department of Agriculture Secretary’s rules and regulations.
“The Forest Service cannot carry out these tasks without a detailed understanding of the respective property rights of the Forest Service as the surface owner and the private mineral estate owners,” Rhoads states in a letter transmitting the legal brief to Leann Marten, ANF supervisor.
POGAM’s legal brief concludes that in the Allegheny National Forest:
a privately-owned severed mineral estate is the dominant estate in land;
the Forest Service has a limited non-regulatory role in seeking accommodations to address surface estate issues when severed private oil and gas rights are exercised; and
the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act do not apply to the exercise of severed private oil and gas property rights in the ANF.
“Oil and gas operators have a long-standing relationship with the ANF land managers that is both positive and mutually beneficial, and we hope that the final Forest Plan will recognize and reinforce that relationship,” Rhoads observes.
“Our hope is that the Forest Service will recognize its limited rights and duties with respect to outstanding and reserved oil and gas rights when it completes its work on the Forest Plan revisions, and we urge the Forest Service to not impose unwarranted regulatory burdens and delays on lawful private oil and gas activities in the Allegheny National Forest.”
More than 90 percent of the oil and gas property rights beneath the Allegheny National Forest are privately owned. The subsurface underlying the Allegheny National Forest contains substantial quantities of oil and gas resources that satisfy critical demands for domestic energy supply and production.
The Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association is a trade association that represents independent producers and related companies that find and develop the Commonwealth’s indigenous natural gas and crude oil reserves. POGAM member companies own and develop outstanding and reserved oil and gas rights underlying land within the proclamation boundaries of the Allegheny National Forest. The association and its member companies stand ready to work cooperatively with the US Forest Service in coordination with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to ensure that our activities are carried out in an efficient and environmentally sensitive manner.
POGAM retained the Washington, DC law firm of Crowell and Moring LLP to prepare the legal brief on its behalf.
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