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BP regains ability to bid on leases for US land, water
Posted by Washington Post: Steven Mufson on March 14th, 2014
Washington Post: The Environmental Protection Agency and BP have reached an agreement that lifts a ban on BP's ability to hold government contracts that has barred the company from bidding on oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters because of the massive oil spill triggered by a blowout on a BP well in April 2010.
BP, the largest lease-holder and one of the largest oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico, had been pressing for an end to its debarment in order to conduct business more freely and to reassure...
Keystone XL pipeline is issue of property rights for some ranchers
Posted by Washington Post: Steven Mufson on July 28th, 2012
Washington Post: John Harter stood on his ranch in the flat sun, a stiff breeze muffling the sound of his voice. Small sandy mounds rose behind him. In front, lay pasture and grazing cattle. At an old well, he stopped to point to water just five or six feet below the surface. Now he looked back at the row of tall cottonwood trees where his pickup truck was parked. The Keystone XL pipeline would come through right here, he said. He doesn’t want it to, and he’s even fought to stop it. It’s not a question of how much...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Keystone XL pipeline is issue of property rights for some ranchersIn North Dakota, the gritty side of an oil boom
Posted by Washington Post: Steven Mufson on July 19th, 2012
Washington Post: Donny Nelson is the epitome of old-time North Dakota. A lean, sharp-featured man sporting a thick goatee, jeans and dirty boots, Nelson is the grandson of homesteaders. Over the past century his family has collected 8,000 acres of prime cattle grazing acreage and cropland. But now Nelson has some unwanted company: Oil prospectors. This remote corner of North Dakota is the site of the biggest U.S. oil rush in decades. It is pumping new supplies into oil markets and swelling state coffers; advocates...