Federal

BP plc will not face lawsuits by energy firms over losses they have attributed to the six-month drilling moratorium imposed in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) following the 2010 Macondo well blowout, a district court judge has ruled.

Several western states and industry groups are hammering away at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) hydraulic fracturing (fracking) rule to prevent the federal agency from governing leasehold activity on public and tribal lands.

A Wyoming coalition of counties and conservation groups last Monday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court of Wyoming in Cheyenne, challenging efforts to protect the greater sage grouse over parts of 11 western states, including Wyoming, where Gov. Matt Mead has embraced the efforts (see Daily GPI,Sept. 22, 2015).

Federal, state and local lawmakers, along with community, labor and business groups have submitted comment to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) urging the agency to open nearly 32,000 acres of the Wayne National Forest in Southern Ohio to more oil and gas development.

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced Friday that it will suspend coal leasing on federal lands pending a “comprehensive review” of the program.

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives, along mostly partisan lines, joined their Senate colleagues on Wednesday in passing a resolution disapproving of the Obama administration’s plan to rewrite the controversial Clean Water Rule (CWR).

A federal appeals court is considering whether to add six separate lawsuits, most of them by power generators, to a massive claim filed by 26 states against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its proposed Clean Power Plan (CPP).

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a minority partner in the doomed BP plc-operated Macondo well, said it is reviewing whether to appeal a $159.5 million penalty for violating the Clean Water Act — far less than the $1 billion-plus penalty sought by federal prosecutors.

Colorado’s Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper and Republican Attorney General (AG) Cynthia Coffman are locked in a legal fight over Hickenlooper’s challenge to the AG’s power to act unilaterally on energy and other issues involving the federal government.