Counties

The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) has about $700,000 available in grants to help public fleet operators, such as school districts, cities and counties, buy new natural gas vehicles. The grant funding, which the RRC originally received to use for propane-fueled vehicles, has now been expanded to natural gas vehicles and can be used to offset some or all of the incremental costs of a natural gas fuel system on a new or retrofitted vehicle. Matching funds for the purchase of the vehicles must come from non-federal sources. Public fleets statewide are eligible to apply for the grants, regardless of the fleet location’s air-quality classification. More information is available at the RRC website.

Coordinated regulation of oil and gas development is needed in Colorado, but no new laws are needed to achieve such an approach, according to a draft report from a task force created earlier this year by Gov. John Hickenlooper. The task force is scheduled to issue its final report to Hickenlooper and state lawmakers Wednesday.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline said it has proposed a higher scheduling priority for local distribution companies — as opposed to producers and marketers — because they have a “public service obligation to deliver gas to their customers and end-users.”

Seven Pennsylvania municipalities filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging a new state law which gives shale gas-rich counties the ability to impose a 15-year impact fee on unconventional gas wells, claiming that it supersedes local authority over drilling and violates the state and U.S. Constitution.

Emergency crews from three northeastern Pennsylvania counties responded Thursday afternoon to an apparent flash fire at the Lathrop compressor station in Springville Township. The 12,000-square-foot facility, operated by Williams Partners LP, houses seven compressors.

A nonprofit organization that conducts reviews of state oil and natural gas regulations has concluded that North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has experienced staff but is not adequately prepared to regulate oil and natural gas activities.

Quicksilver Resources Inc. said that its Barnett Shale subsidiary, Quicksilver Production Partners LP (QPP), has registered for an initial public offering (IPO) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

While the debate over hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the Cumnock Formation stalls in the North Carolina General Assembly, two municipalities have taken steps to regulate the practice locally.

Victory Energy Corp. said Thursday a carbonite formation well in southeastern New Mexico it holds an interest in has been successfully re-entered, five years after being plugged, and is now completed, fracked and producing oil and natural gas.