Agency

In a move that hurts coal-fired electricity generators, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a rule adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that limits smokestack emissions in 28 central and eastern states that affect air quality of other states located downwind.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has sent Chevron Appalachia LLC notice of nine violations stemming from an explosion and fire at a well site in Greene County, PA, that left one worker dead and another injured in February (see Shale Daily, Feb. 11).

Weather from October to February east of the Rocky Mountains was significantly colder than last winter — and colder than the average for the past 10 years — and the resulting surge in natural gas consumption will drive working inventories at the end of March down to 965 Bcf, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). But don’t expect higher natural gas prices, the agency said.

State and local officials said an explosion early Tuesday at Chevron Appalachia LLC’s Lanco 7H well in Greene County, PA, was one of the worst the state has seen in modern history and the largest accident yet at an unconventional well in the state.

At FERC’s 1,000th meeting Thursday, former commissioners who had a major hand in opening both the natural gas and electricity markets to competition, reminisced about how the agency has evolved from a relatively obscure regulator to one that is at the center of domestic energy delivery.

North Carolina has sent back grant funds that it received from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study the effects of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on surface water quality.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which includes under its regulatory umbrella much of the state’s natural gas and oil industry, needs to open its doors wider to public scrutiny, said acting DEP secretary E. Christopher Abruzzo.

While Gov. Jerry Brown already has declared he will seek to fine-tune its provisions next year, California’s new law (SB 4) regulating hydraulic fracturing (fracking) will not have final rules implemented for the industry to follow until 2015, although the law will be effective on Jan. 1 (seeShale Daily,Sept. 24).

Michael Guesman, an employee of Hardrock Excavating LLC, admitted Thursday that he dumped oilfield waste into a storm drain that empties into the Mahoning River near Youngstown, OH, a violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA) that prompted the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) to permanently revoke the operating permits for Hardrock and a second company also alleged to have violated the CWA.