Council

Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday put in play the possibility of carving out buffer zones around the city’s drilling sites that are near homes, schools, churches and health care facilities. The council president has asked for a study of the feasibility of establishing the setbacks.

Oklahoma earlier this year enacted a law reiterating its primacy in regulating drilling activities, but the city council in the university town of Stillwater, OK, on Monday passed an ordinance setting rules for oil and natural gas drilling within the city limits.

The gloves are off when it comes to competing for up to $200 million in California Air Resources Board (CARB) funding for clean transportation, and hydrogen advocates in the state are ready to go toe-to-toe with natural gas vehicle (NGV) backers and others in the alternative energy sector.

UIL Holdings Corp. has terminated its $1.86 billion agreement to purchase Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW), the nation’s largest municipally-owned gas utility, after the city council’s decision in October to rule out what it deemed a risky sale.

The city council of Barnett Shale town Denton, TX, will have a “frackas” on its hands Tuesday evening when numerous citizens are expected to show up for a hearing at which the council will consider a petition to ban hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within the city limits.

Reversing actions it took just weeks earlier, the city council in Carson, CA, a Los Angeles suburb in the oil-producing area surrounding the Long Beach-LA Harbor, voted Thursday to end a ban on oil and natural gas drilling. Council members decided not to extend the 45-day drilling ban measure, which expires later this month.

Los Angeles City Council at the end of February directed the city attorney to draft an ordinance banning well stimulation practices. It is reportedly aimed at hydraulic fracturing (fracking) but is cast more broadly than that, according to oil/natural gas industry sources.

As the mayor of Dallas predicted might happen, Fort Worth-based Trinity East Energy LLC is suing the city for millions of dollars after the city council voted last year to deny the company the permits it needed to drill on leases for which it had paid the city more than $19 million.

City of Dallas officials are inching toward a conclusion to the long-running debate over how large to make the buffer zone around would-be well sites within the city. One proposal could effectively prevent drilling within the city limits, an industry advocate said.