Enforcement

In a final rule issued Tuesday, FERC has expressly delegated to its Office of Enforcement authority over the agency’s Form 552, through which traders in the wholesale market are required to report aggregated totals of various types of transactions annually.

FERC assessed $26.25 million in civil penalties and disgorged nearly $1 million in profits in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015, according to an annual report released by the agency Thursday.

A review of more than three dozen self-reported cases handled by FERC’s Office of Enforcement (OE) found no evidence that OE “had not performed enforcement activities in accordance with its own policies and procedures,” according to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Inspector General (OIG).

The head of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) said the agency needs $1 million to hire seven additional conservation officers in order to patrol waterways in the Marcellus Shale to look for oil and gas polluters.

The federal government’s pipeline safety regulators reported that 2013 marked a record year for civil penalties assessed and a minimum number of serious pipeline incidents.

The head of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has cited 12 offshore operators for their failure to demonstrate compliance with the Safety and Environmental Management Systems (SEMS) requirements of the Workplace Safety Rule, which was put in place following the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The regulations required offshore operators to complete an initial SEMS audit by Nov.15.

FERC’s Office of Enforcement (OE) said Thursday it raked in $304 million in civil penalties and almost $141 million in unjust profits that included the largest penalty ever assessed by the agency in settlements during the current fiscal year.

Pennsylvania has a “well managed” and professional” regulatory program for oil and gas operations in the state, but should make four specific changes to how it regulates hydraulic fracturing (fracking), according to a report by the nonprofit State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations Inc. (Stronger).

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has postponed a lease sale in California that was scheduled for May 22 due to budget constraints, a shift in priorities to inspection and enforcement of existing leases, and processing of new applications for permits to drill. This was the only lease sale that the agency had proposed in the state for the remainder of the fiscal year.