Drilling on Publicly Owned Land

Abstract

This article covers three recent court opinions dealing with drilling on state and federal land: two in Pennsylvania and one in California. In Minard Run Oil Co., v. U.S. Forest Service, a Third Circuit decision, private entities owned the subsurface rights, while the federal government owned and managed the surface rights. Belden & Blake v. DCNR, a PA Supreme Court decision, pitted the right of access by the owner of an oil and gas estate underlying a state park against the authority of a state agency to regulate and protect surface use. The article then contrasts those holdings with a recent California case, Center for Biological Diversity v. Bureau of Land Management, in which the government owned both the surface and the oil/gas in part of Central California’s Monterey Shale Formation.