Governments

A bill under consideration by the Ohio House of Representatives would allow local governments to transfer into their coffers revenue generated from water sales to unconventional drilling operators.

Low natural gas prices have hit Pennsylvania, where deep-shale drilling fees collected last year fell about 3% from 2011, according to state data.

An Ohio judge has upheld a class action lawsuit against a Utica Shale driller, a decision that could release hundreds of landowners from undeveloped oil and natural gas lease agreements.

A report issued by American Clean Skies Foundation Thursday projects that technology-driven changes in oil and gas production since 2007 will lead to annual employment gains of 835,000 to 1.6 million new jobs nationwide by 2017 (more than the entire U.S. auto manufacturing industry), and increase the country’s gross domestic product by $167 billion to $245 billion on a net basis.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals 10th Circuit on Wednesday rejected on a split 2-1 vote an appeal by oil/gas industry operators and local governments in eastern Utah, upholding the Obama administration’s decision almost four years ago to withdraw 77 leases that had been sold at the tail end of the George W. Bush administration.

Former Colorado Assistant Attorney General Matthew Lepore on Monday took the reins as director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC).

An appellate court in Pennsylvania has ruled that compressor stations fit the legal definition of “gas production” and therefore can’t be banned by localities where other aspects of natural gas production are already permitted.

Legislators in the Ohio House of Representatives have passed a mid-biennium budget review bill but stripped out Gov. John Kasich’s proposals to restructure taxes and regulations on the oil and natural gas industry.

A Pennsylvania judge last week pushed back the start date for portions of a recently passed Marcellus Shale law to give local governments more time to adopt its standardized zoning measures, but his ruling questioned the idea that the entire law is unconstitutional.