Backing

Support for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) among New Yorkers remained unchanged overall, as a sharp increase in backing among suburbanites canceled out flagging support from Upstate voters, according to a Siena College Research Institute poll released Wednesday.

A coalition of New York landowners who support natural gas development came to the state capital on Wednesday to meet elected officials backing their cause and to deliver them a six-point landowners’ “declaration of rights.”

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. is backing out of the Rockies to focus on Appalachia and the Midcontinent.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. is backing out of the Rockies to focus on Appalachia and the Midcontinent.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. is backing out of the Rockies to focus on Appalachia and the Midcontinent.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) is backing two bills dealing with natural gas pipeline safety that passed the state Senate last week and are headed to committees in the lower house Assembly. No hearings have been set yet, and a utility official in Sacramento told NGI Monday that none are expected soon.

At a time when the concept of natural gas as a transportation fuel is getting newfound backing in the nation’s capital and in various states, there was generally positive reaction to the recent move by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make it easier to certify compressed natural gas (CNG) conversion systems.

Washington Gas is backing legislation in Maryland that would allow for expedited cost recovery for pipeline replacement programs outside traditional base rate cases. The utility cites pipeline safety as the reason for its support, but a building trade association opposes the associated costs.

United Parcel Service (UPS) has called on the backing of Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp. for its fuel and fueling system. To fuel UPS, the T. Boone Pickens-founded supplier of compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for transportation relies on a liquefaction facility it operates in the western edge of Southern California’s Mojave Desert near Boron, CA.