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Texas lawmakers on Wednesday gained some insight into where an increasing amount of money in the Lone Star State comes from: the Eagle Ford Shale oil and gas patch. The state is producing more oil than it has in the last 25 years, thanks in large part to the unconventional play in South Texas.

California air quality officials reported that for the fourth consecutive year carbon emissions from power plants in the state have declined dramatically. A full-year figure for 2012 is still being calculated, according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which is the lead agency implementing the state’s precedent-setting 2006 climate change law (AB 32). As measured by CARB, power plant carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions in 2011 totaled 34.9 million metric tons of CO2e (MTCO2e), compared to 52.3 million MTCO2e four years earlier. Subsequently, the totals dropped to 49.3 million MTCO2e in 2009 and down further to 44.6 million MTCO2e in 2010. Power plants are the biggest stationary source of MTCO2e emissions, followed by refineries and hydrogen plants, whose total emissions are also down compared to 2008 but have steadily risen during the last three recorded years (2009-2011).

An administrative law judge (ALJ) has turned down a request from two environmental groups to block Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co’s plans for an expansion of a natural gas pipeline in Pennsylvania, saying the groups “failed to show that they were likely to succeed on the merits or that they would suffer irreparable harm.”

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has agreed to allow the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conduct extensive tests at one of its drilling sites as part of the federal agency’s ongoing investigation into the safety of hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Range Resources Corp. also may allow EPA to work at one of its drilling sites.

A drilling services company based in New Mexico has had to suspend its plans to convert its truck and drilling rig fleets from diesel to natural gas because of the local gas distribution utility’s inability to service a proposed fueling station in Farmington, NM.

Government and industry officials are cheering plans for a compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling corridor stretching from Pennsylvania into West Virginia along Route 79. It will support the Marcellus shale gas-inspired initiatives for converting hundreds of vehicles to operate on natural gas.

The Gas Co. LLC’s (TGC) plans to operate facilities in Hawaii to receive liquefied natural gas (LNG) sourced from natural gas produced in the continental U.S. do not include “an LNG terminal as envisioned under NGA [the Natural Gas Act]” and therefore do not require FERC authorization, the Commission said Thursday.

The first oilsands project with longer term commercial possibilities in Utah has gotten approval to move forward from a citizen appeal board for the state Division of Oil, Gas and Mining (DOGM). It’s backers say it is the first commercial-scale oilsands project in the United States.

Colorado on Monday established new mandatory water sampling requirements for oil and natural gas drilling drawing criticism from industry and environmental groups. Sampling of multiple water wells before and after drilling is now required.