Designating

The Alaska Oil and Gas Association (AOGA) is suing the federal government for designating more than 187,000 square miles of the state as critical habitat for the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

A coalition of 13 House lawmakers led by Rep. Don Young of Alaska has called on the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to rely on sound science when designating critical habitat for polar bear populations in Alaska.

The Agriculture Department’s U.S. Forest Service has issued a record of decision (ROD) designating energy corridors in the West as preferred locations for oil and natural gas production, hydrogen pipelines and electricity transmission and distribution lines.

A federal district court in Washington, DC, has upheld the U.S. Maritime Administration’s (MARAD) decision designating New Jersey as an “additional adjacent coastal state” that has the power to block Atlantic Sea Island Group LLC’s (ASIG) proposed deepwater liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to be sited on a man-made island off the coasts of New York and New Jersey.

A federal district court in Washington, DC, has upheld the U.S. Maritime Administration’s (MARAD) decision designating New Jersey as an “additional adjacent coastal state” that has the power to block Atlantic Sea Island Group LLC’s (ASIG) proposed deepwater liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to be sited on a man-made island off the coasts of New York and New Jersey.

Columbia Gas is designating Wednesday as a Critical Day in Market Areas 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33 and 34. “Based on forecasted markets, available facilities and capacity utilization, transporter [Columbia] projects that all available capacity to the aforementioned Market Areas will be required to meet firm service obligations, leaving…zero nonfirm capacity,” the pipeline said. Shippers with primary firm rights or secondary priority rights in the affected Market Areas will not be impacted.

EnCana Corp. has buoyed the hopes of Nova Scotia’s offshore oil and natural gas industry by designating a Swiss company to build and operate its planned Deep Panuke mobile offshore production unit.

IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) received a ruling from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) designating ICE Futures as a “qualified board or exchange,” which provides U.S. participants in ICE Futures markets with “60/40 tax treatment.”

Southern California and the Atlantic coastal area from New York City to northern Virginia are the most severely congested areas in the country, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said in a new national electric transmission congestion study released last Tuesday.