Block

House Republicans are working on “a larger bill” to block final rules on methane emissions — and possibly others — from taking effect after one GOP lawmaker’s plan to invoke a rare parliamentary procedure to block the rules failed because too much time elapsed since their introduction.

House Republicans are working on “a larger bill” to block final rules on methane emissions — and possibly others — from taking effect after one GOP lawmaker’s plan to invoke a rare parliamentary procedure to block the rules failed because too much time elapsed since their introduction.

A focus of oil/natural gas industry and environmental tensions for years, the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming became a last stand for the Obama administration recently as U.S. Forest Service (USFS) officials took steps to protect 40,000 acres within the national forest from potential oil/gas leasing.

Natural gas pipelines on Destin Pipeline Co.’s system operated by BP Pipelines in the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) were in phase 2 of their severe weather contingency plan with all nonessential personnel preparing for evacuation in preparation for what could be the first real tropical storm threat to U.S. energy interests this year, Destin said Wednesday.

A Delaware court on Thursday refused to block the $6.9 billion merger of Plains Exploration & Production Co. with Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., clearing the way for Plains shareholders to vote on the proposal May 20.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is trying to block a Senate vote on President Obama’s pick to head the Department of Energy as a protest to proposed budget cuts to a nuclear processing facility in his home state.

A fire in February that killed one person and destroyed a city block in Kansas City, MO, was caused by the “accidental ignition of natural gas vapors that accumulated” inside a restaurant, according to a report by the Kansas City Fire Department. Pilot lights had been left on at JJ’s restaurant despite warnings from crews investigating a nearby gas line rupture, and the fire began in the kitchen with “heat from an open flame or smoking materials” listed as the heat source (see Daily GPI, Feb. 22). However, the report did not assign blame as to what caused the Missouri Gas Energy pipeline to explode. The report was compiled by the city, the city fire department, the police department and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The Missouri Public Service Commission and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration are conducting separate investigations.

An investigation continued Thursday in the natural gas explosion that destroyed most of a city block in a shopping district Tuesday night in Kansas City, MO. A snow storm that blanketed the region Wednesday night had slowed progress, officials said.

An administrative law judge (ALJ) has turned down a request from two environmental groups to block Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co’s plans for an expansion of a natural gas pipeline in Pennsylvania, saying the groups “failed to show that they were likely to succeed on the merits or that they would suffer irreparable harm.”