Judge

Just six weeks after a federal judge in California ruled that parts of an Obama-era rule governing associated natural gas flaring and venting on public and tribal lands should take effect, a federal judge in Wyoming on Wednesday reversed course and issued a stay, giving the Trump administration more time to revise or rescind the rule.

A federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming on Monday denied a request by several oil/gas producing states for a preliminary injunction against the Obama administration’s venting/flaring rule, which the states allege duplicates and negates state actions already cutting emissions.

A California Superior Court judge in Alameda County recently upheld the state’s ongoing program for underground injection control (UIC) wells, which has come under criticism the past two years.

A U.S. District Magistrate Judge has dealt a blow to a southwestern Pennsylvania township’s more than year-long fight to stop an underground injection well from operating inside its borders, striking down an ordinance it passed in June 2014 to ban oil and gas waste disposal wells.

A state district court in Boulder, CO, recently completed a hearing on the oil and natural gas industry’s legal challenges to the Longmont city ban on drilling, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking), within the city. A judge is being asked to invalidate the city ban (see Shale Daily, July 17, 2013).

BP plc could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal appeals court on Monday rejected a bid in an 8-5 decision that would have allowed the oil major to prevent compensation payments to businesses that had not proved they were harmed directly by the Macondo well blowout.

A state district court judge in Larimer County, CO, said Wednesday that he will make a decision in the next 30 days following oral arguments in a court case challenging a sixth Colorado city’s attempt to hold a referendum on a moratorium on oil/natural gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing, within city limits.

PG&E Corp. CEO Anthony Earley in a Wall Street interview Wednesday held out the possibility of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the company’s giant San Francisco-based combination utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E), if a proposed $2.25 billion penalty by state regulatory safety staff is upheld by the five-member California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

The New Orleans federal judge overseeing the BP plc multi-district litigation concerning the Macondo well blowout ordered the producer on Wednesday to ante up more than $130 million in fees to continue funding the court-supervised claims administrator.