Environmental

After years of delays, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is proceeding with a competitive oil and gas lease sale for 33 parcels in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told FERC on Tuesday it still is not satisfied with the “climate change analysis” behind the Commission’s environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Leach Xpress and Rayne Xpress Expansion projects. The agency asked for a “headquarters level” meeting to straighten out disagreements over climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In another effort to stop the PennEast Pipeline from advancing, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJCF) and Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association (SBMWA) on Monday requested that FERC withdraw the application and consider a “no-action alternative.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday nominated the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) acting Secretary Patrick McDonnell to serve permanently in the role.

The costs associated with implementing three new final rules by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) governing methane emissions from oil and gas industry sources would outweigh any benefits, industry supporters told a House panel on Thursday.

The National Park Service (NPS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday detailed their concerns with FERC’s draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the PennEast Pipeline, with both saying that a significant amount of information is missing from the document that could better help the public understand it.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management in central California will now pursue a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) early in its development of resource management plans, based on a decision Tuesday by a U.S. District Court judge for the Central District of California.

FERC has granted a certificate for Dominion Transmission Inc.’s (DTI) Leidy South Project, which would serve new and existing power generation facilities with natural gas traveling from the Leidy Interconnect in Clinton, PA, to points in Loudoun County, VA.

A state representative from Southeast Pennsylvania has introduced legislation that would increase the bonding requirements for unconventional natural gas wells to ensure more resources are available to clean up any environmental problems if they occur after drillers cease operations.