Authority

In a win for the oil and gas industry and its supporters, a federal judge in Wyoming ruled Tuesday that the Department of Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) does not have the authority to enforce a rule governing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on public and tribal lands.

An Ohio Common Pleas Court judge has handed the oil and gas industry another victory in the ongoing battle between the state’s regulatory authority and local communities that want more control over operators by striking down a Cleveland suburb’s charter amendment that sought to ban drilling.

Residents of a Cleveland suburb have filed a lawsuit against Ohio and two drilling companies arguing that the state’s exclusive authority to regulate and permit oil and gas wells is a violation of their constitutional rights to local self-government.

FERC on Tuesday extended by one week the priority treatment of propane shipments to consumers in the Midwest and Northeast.

Vinita, OK-basedGrand River Dam Authority(GRDA) on Wednesday voted to proceed with plans to develop a 400 MW combined cycle natural gas-fired generation facility adjacent to its Coal Fired Complex in Chouteau, OK. An electric generation resource plan approved by the GRDA board would allow for an increase in both GRDA’s gas and wind generation capacity, to eventually replace the output from Unit 1 at the Coal Fired Complex, which has been in operation since 1982. About 45% of GRDA’s total generation capacity comes from two coal units at the complex; the addition of the approved gas and wind generation would drive that figure down to about 17%. Gas generation will increase to 45% of total capacity from the current 25%, GRDA said.

House Republicans are pushing legislation that would transfer authority to approve natural gas exports from the Department of Energy (DOE), which has granted two export requests, to FERC, which has only approved one export terminal.

Trunkline Gas pipeline is seeking FERC authority to reconfigure an existing receipt point on its system to accommodate increased capacity and allow for the bi-directional flow of natural gas to and from the Cheniere Creole Trail Pipeline, which would deliver domestic gas to the Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project in Cameron Parish, LA.

A panel of marketing representatives for several industrial giants was convened in mid-May by the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority (WIA) to look at how quick-start natural gas-fired generation can mitigate the increased variability on the electric grid due to increased wind and solar-based power supplies.

States should have the authority to decide the level of activity on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), a group of Republican governors said this week at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston.