There are some 408 parks that are part of the National Park System in the United States. The National Park Service (NPS) is the government agency charged with managing those parks. The NPS has just put everyone on notice that new regulations for oil and gas drilling on and under those parks is coming. In some cases mineral rights are not owned by the government and drilling does happen on or under the parks. Oil and gas drilling currently happens in 12 of the 408 parks, including drilling operations in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park between Akron and Cleveland in Northeast Ohio. Just over half of the drilling operations happening in those 12 National Parks is exempt from NPS regulations. In an annoucement (below), the NPS said (1) we’re about to make drilling regs more strict, and (2) the new regs will apply to all drilling in all National Parks, including the places where it’s currently exempt from NPS rules–even if the mineral rights are not owned by the NPS. It is another power grab by the federal government. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) tried this tactic with non-park federal lands–a move that landed it in court (see Federal Judge Blocks BLM Rules for Fracking on Federal Lands). Will the same thing happen to the NPS?…
There are some 408 parks that are part of the National Park System in the United States. The National Park Service (NPS) is the government agency charged with managing those parks. The NPS has just put everyone on notice that new regulations for oil and gas drilling on and under those parks is coming. In some cases mineral rights are not owned by the government and drilling does happen on or under the parks. Oil and gas drilling currently happens in 12 of the 408 parks, including drilling operations in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park between Akron and Cleveland in Northeast Ohio. Just over half of the drilling operations happening in those 12 National Parks is exempt from NPS regulations. In an annoucement (below), the NPS said (1) we’re about to make drilling regs more strict, and (2) the new regs will apply to all drilling in all National Parks, including the places where it’s currently exempt from NPS rules–even if the mineral rights are not owned by the NPS. It is another power grab by the federal government. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) tried this tactic with non-park federal lands–a move that landed it in court (see 