United States Tenth Circuit

In several environmental and citizens' groups challenge to a 2003 Bureau of Land Management resource management plan amendment allowing natural gas development in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where the Bureau reasonably concluded that phased development was impractical and would not meet the project's purposes, and this ground was an adequate basis for the Bureau's decision

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/18/2010
• Published 06/18/2010

Judges

• KELLY, Circuit Judge., Before KELLY, O'BRIEN, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Michael S. Freeman of Earthjustice, Denver, CO, and Erik Schlenker-Goodrich of Western Environmental Law Center, Taos, NM, (James Angell and Margaret Parish of Earthjustice, Denver, CO; Dave Bahr, Western Environmental Law Center, Eugene, OR, with them on the briefs), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Robert H. Oakley, Attorney, (John C. Cruden, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Mergen, Attorney, with him on the brief) Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington, D.C., for the Federal Defendants-Appellees., Charles L. Kaiser, (Charles A. Breer, with him on the brief) of Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP, Denver, CO, for Defendant-Intervenor-Appellee Williams Production RMT Company., John C. Martin, (Susan Mathiascheck and Amy Chasanov, with him on the brief) of Crowell & Moring LLP, Washington, D.C., for Defendants-Intervenors-Appellees Pennaco Energy, Inc., Marathon Oil Company, and Devon Energy Corporation., Jon Metropoulos and Dana Hupp of Gough Shanahan Johnson & Waterman, Helena, MT, for Defendant-Intervenor-Appellee Fidelity Exploration & Production Company., Jay Jerde, Deputy Attorney General and Affie Ellis, Assistant Attorney General, Cheyenne, WY, for Defendant-Intervenor-Appellee State of Wyoming.