Colleagues

The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) added two newly elected members and one re-elected member Monday. Bob Stump, the recently re-elected member, was voted by his colleagues as the ACC’s new chairman. He is joined by new member Bob Burns and Susan Bitter Smith, along with returning members, Gary Pierce and Brenda Burns. Pierce just completed two years as the regulatory panel’s chair. Stump serves on the board of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. On Friday, the ACC also named a new executive director, Jodi Jerich, who comes to the commission from a three-year stint as head of the Arizona Residential Utility Consumer Office. Jerich formerly served as policy advisor to ACC commissioner Mike Gleason.

A bipartisan group of Michigan House lawmakers is urging its colleagues to consider ways to expand the use of natural gas, offer tax breaks to some producers, get regular reports on the state’s infrastructure and capabilities for natural gas, and put more land with state-owned mineral rights up for oil and natural gas leasing.

A bipartisan group of Michigan House lawmakers is urging its colleagues to consider ways to boost natural gas exploration, development and production, including a proposal to put more land up for oil and natural gas leasing, including its considerable unconventional resources, that include the Antrim, Collingwood and Utica shales.

A bipartisan group of Michigan House lawmakers is urging its colleagues to consider ways to expand the use of natural gas, offer tax breaks to some oil producers, get regular reports on the state’s infrastructure and capabilities for natural gas, and put more land with state-owned mineral rights up for oil and natural gas leasing.

Global energy CEOs, who joined their brethren at the 31st annual IHS CERAWeek 2012 in Houston last week, urged their colleagues to dust up their images and become more proactive in exceeding regulatory safety standards.

Three researchers at Cornell University say a controversial study, conducted by their colleagues and stating that shale gas activities posed a more serious threat to global warming than coal, contains serious flaws and should be revisited.

An interior oil and natural gas supply glut, the result of strong output from shales and tight oil and gas plays, is developing because infrastructure can’t keep up, and that in turn is pressuring prices, according to Canaccord Genuity.

California’s Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday night to hold off on a ban of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and instead add well permitting requirements to require individual approvals by the county’s planning and development department.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, joined by leaders in the natural gas and chemical industries, announced Tuesday the formation of the Marcellus to Manufacturing Task Force, intended to harness the business opportunities surrounding the development of the Marcellus Shale.