Courts

Parties to ongoing litigation challenging the continued operation of the Dakota Access Pipeline LLC (DAPL) have agreed to a schedule that would see the last brief filed in mid-December, raising the prospect that a ruling in the case won’t arrive until after the election. Lawyers in the case, between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and…

Deliveries resumed Wednesday through both pipes in Enbridge Inc.’s 540,000 b/d Line 5 across the lake floor of the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan, after a safety examination shuttered one of the conduits for 11 weeks. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) allowed the Calgary-based operator to restore full capacity. The Michigan Circuit…

Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, beset by legal and regulatory hurdles that have pushed back the startup of its 303-mile, 2 million Dth/d Appalachian natural gas conduit, has asked FERC for a two-year extension to bring the project online. Citing “unforeseen litigation and permitting delays” outside of the project’s control, MVP in a filing Tuesday with…

An administrative law judge has allowed Sunoco Pipeline LP to resume horizontal directional drilling (HDD) on a stretch of its Mariner East pipeline system in southeast Pennsylvania, overturning an order from state regulators that stopped construction last week. Sunoco appealed the order to the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB), which oversees decisions made by the…

It’s now a waiting game for the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) after both sides in the oil pipeline’s ongoing legal battle have had their say regarding the motion to stay a lower court’s order to temporarily shut and empty the system. In a filing Thursday (July 23) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s (AG) Office has charged a National Fuel Gas Co. subsidiary and a subcontractor with environmental crimes as part of a two-year grand jury investigation into unconventional natural gas development.  Southeast Directional Drilling and National Fuel Gas Supply Corp. were charged. Evidence obtained by the grand jury revealed that a “small leak”…

Louisiana landowners involved in a lawsuit over the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (BBP), the last segment of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline system (DAPL), were awarded a larger payout after an appeals court reversed a ruling. In his decision on Thursday, Judge Jonathan Perry of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third in Louisiana said…

A federal judge has vacated the Trump administration’s attempt to rescind an Obama-era rule governing associated natural gas flaring and venting on public and tribal lands, citing “myriad inadequacies” on which the rescission was based, including violating National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations.  A coalition of environmental and citizens’ groups had argued that the move…

Energy Transfer LP has “not yet taken any steps to begin shutting down” the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) in light of an order by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to temporarily halt operations and empty the 1,172-mile crude oil pipeline while an environmental impact statement (EIS) is completed. Instead, lawyers for…