BILLINGS – A federal judge has approved a first-of-its-kind settlement requiring the government to suspend 38,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Montana so it can gauge how oil field activities contribute to climate change.

At issue are the greenhouse gases emitted by drilling machinery and industry practices such as venting natural gas directly into the atmosphere.

Environmentalists – who sued when the Montana leases were sold in 2008 – argued the industry has allowed too much waste and uses inefficient technologies that could easily be updated. Full story. Matthew Brown, AP

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