Groups

Four industry trade groups on Monday submitted requests to the Department of Interior and its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) seeking information about why changes were made to financial assurances and bonding requirements for Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas producers.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead on Thursday directed his state’s attorney general to intervene in support of the federal agencies targeted by a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Idaho by four environmental groups that don’t like the greater sage grouse state-federal protection strategy hammered out last year (see Daily GPI,Sept. 22, 2015).

A trio of environmental groups in California on Thursday filed a complaint in state Superior Court seeking to have declared illegal new state interim rules governing oil/gas operators' use of wastewater injection wells (see Daily GPI, April 24).

A trio of environmental groups in California on Thursday filed a complaint in state Superior Court seeking to have declared illegal new state interim rules governing oil/gas operators’ use of wastewater injection wells (see Daily GPI, April 24).

The top three trade groups that represent the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania filed a petition with the state’s Commonwealth Court on Wednesday, asking that they be allowed to intervene in the ongoing legal battle over Act 13, the state’s omnibus Marcellus Shale law.

Rejecting urgings from environmental groups to veto the bill, California Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday signed into law new regulations (SB 4) for hydraulic fracturing (fracking), but with the caveat that he intends to work on amendments next year to fine tune the requirements.

Environmental groups, the Edison Electric Institute and large natural gas end-users were quick to commend the Senate’s confirmation Thursday of Gina McCarthy as head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but oil and natural gas companies were apparently following the rule, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

The Supreme Court of Ohio has agreed to hear an appeal in a case involving local ordinances, or “home rule” laws, that pits a Utica Shale driller against a Summit County municipality that had tried to shut down the driller’s operations.

The Bakken Shale and Three Forks formation in the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota contain a combined estimated 7.4 billion bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, 6.7 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 530 million bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids (NGL), according to an assessment released Tuesday by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).