Environmentalists

While political leaders are hailing it as a bipartisan accomplishment, environmental groups are critical of California’s recent extension to 2030 of the state’s precedent-setting cap-and-trade program, which the oil/natural gas industry has supported.

Three environmental organizations this week released documents provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) detailing more than 61 spills reported by Sunoco Pipeline LP during horizontal directional drilling (HDD) operations for its Mariner East (ME) 2 pipeline project.

Environmentalists opposed to the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) were turned down again in a federal appeals court on Friday when arguments against the ongoing liquefaction and export project at the existing Dominion Cove Point LNG terminal were rejected.

While much of the focus of the booming natural gas market is drilling, production and new pipelines, in the background is a drive to speed up repair and replacement of older lines that are straining under new, heavier loads.

Researchers at Ohio State University (OSU) want to set up a functioning oil and gas well at the school’s Eastern Agricultural Station in Noble County, OH, to study the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Large natural gas end-users, consumer advocates and environmentalists have raised a cry about exporting U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Asian and European markets, but one power generator executive wonders why no one is questioning increasing pipeline exports of gas to Mexico.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who is in her second week on the job, signaled Monday that new rules governing federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) are imminent.

Environmentalists have filed a lawsuit in Washington, DC, challenging the Interior Department’s final 2012-2017 plan for Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and natural gas leasing, which focuses primarily on the the Gulf of Mexico and potentially offshore areas in Alaska.

Producers, oil service companies, Native Americans and even some environmentalists agree on one point: that the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) should scrap its proposed rule overseeing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations on public and Indian lands and start all over again. But their reasons for requesting the do-over are entirely different.