Hearing

Representatives from the energy, business, manufacturing and academic sectors told a House subcommittee on Wednesday to “modernize” but not blow up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), arguing that it’s essential to the nation’s energy growth.

The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) has assessed a $1.1 million civil penalty against EQT Corp. for a 2012 impoundment leak in which thousands of gallons of natural gas drilling wastewater were discharged in Tioga County.

Potter Township, PA, supervisors have approved a motion to draft a conditional-use permit for Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC’s multi-billion dollar ethane cracker in Beaver County. The supervisors, who delayed approving the permit last month after a public hearing stretched over two days, must still approve the language and details included in the permit at another public hearing. The township is concerned about noise, pollution and traffic, among other things. Hearings on the matter have been contentious, according to local news media reports. The facility would be built on about 400 acres near the Ohio River in Potter and Center Townships. It would have the capacity to consume roughly 100,000 b/d of ethane. The company is still waiting on other regulatory approvals.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia on Tuesday rejected an emergency filing by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent ongoing construction of the four-state, nearly 1,200-mile Dakota Access Pipeline project.

Texas lawmakers on the Sunset Advisory Commission mostly turned a skeptical ear toward recommendations for changes at the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC), the Lone Star State’s oil and natural gas regulator.

In advance of a public hearing on Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) practices and operations scheduled for Monday, watchdog group Public Citizen has rolled out its wish list of reforms it would like to see at the oil/natural gas regulator.

The safety director for Plains All American Pipeline was in the hot seat Friday during a joint California legislative committee hearing looking into the company's handling of an oil spill along Santa Barbara and other Southern California beaches May 19.

The safety director for Plains All American Pipeline was in the hot seat Friday during a joint California legislative committee hearing looking into the company’s handling of an oil spill along Santa Barbara and other Southern California beaches May 19.

Frequent seismic activity near the Barnett Shale towns of Azle and Irving in Texas is naturally occurring and cannot be blamed on drilling waste injection wells, ExxonMobil Corp. unit XTO Energy representatives said during a show cause hearing in which the company made a case for keeping its area injection well operating.