The environmental group filed the suit here, asking for an immediate injunction to reverse the rule change, which it said was done without public input. It also asks that the drilling be stopped. The lawsuit names Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton and Fran Mainella, the director of the National Park Service, as defendants.
The Park Service denied the allegation. "That is so untrue,'' said Carol McCoy, a Park Service spokeswoman based in Denver. "There has been no change from the Bush administration, from the Clinton administration. Nothing has been done outside the public process."
The Sierra Club contended that a rule change affects 14 national parks that have privately owned minerals beneath them.
Oil and gas producers can drill at an angle to reach privately owned minerals from private land adjacent to a park.
The Sierra Club said that since late 2001 the Park Service has allowed directional drilling without impact analyses. The environmental studies required of drilling companies have also been reduced, said Brandt Mannchen, chairman of the Sierra Club's chapter in Texas.
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