Environmentally

The federal government and states would reach a compromise on regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) if the parties agreed to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the issue, a Texas official told a House panel Wednesday.

It was billed as a bilateral effort to ensure safe and environmentally responsible development of the Appalachian Basin’s shale gas resources, but not everyone on the environmental side of the aisle is ready to embrace the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD).

eCorp International LLC and a property owners organization in New York have decided to scrap a “complex” plan to create a company indirectly owned by the landowners and will return to the drawing board, delaying the possibility of bringing waterless hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to the Empire State.

The Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) is seeking requests for proposals (RFP) for its Small Producer Program and its Unconventional Resources Program.

The shale rocks that are reconfiguring the North American energy landscape eventually will be unearthed around the world, albeit at a much slower pace, but the economic impacts will be gigantic, an ExxonMobil Corp. executive said Tuesday.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said he was concerned about the Morgantown City Council’s decision Tuesday night to pass an ordinance banning hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within the city and an adjacent one-mile buffer zone, and requested the city to “confine its governance to its city limits.”

The Pittsburgh City Council on Tuesday approved an ordinance prohibiting natural gas drilling in the city, despite questions about the ordinance’s legality.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Alaska is cautiously moving ahead on a plan that could lead to oil and natural gas leasing in an environmentally sensitive corner of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) by late next year.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Alaska is cautiously moving ahead on a plan that could lead to oil and natural gas leasing in an environmentally sensitive corner of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) by late next year.