BP asks judge to toss Montana lawsuit over cleanup

HELENA — Lawyers for BP asked a judge Wednesday to dismiss a Montana lawsuit that alleges the oil giant and its subsidiaries collected millions of dollars in insurance money while letting the state foot the bill for cleaning soil and groundwater contaminated by their leaky storage tanks.

The state and the Montana Petroleum Tank Release Compensation Board filed the lawsuit in February, accusing the British company and its North American subsidiaries of fraud and negligence when it came to paying for the cleanup of decades of pollution from the storage tanks at service stations across the s...