Legal

Natural gas producers don’t owe a duty to develop each and every “economically exploitable strata” under a landowner’s property, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled last month.

West Virginia’s legal system continues to struggle with surface rights issues, with the state’s Supreme Court of Appeals finding recently that the term “surface” means just what it says and does not include underground resources.

On a 6-3 vote after dozens of citizens and business representatives spoke, the Colorado Springs, CO, City Council late Tuesday night approved rules to allow the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in oil and natural gas drilling, mirroring similar statewide rules.

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Michael Krancer took aim at a state lawmaker for accusing his agency of wrongdoing when it tested water supplies allegedly tainted by natural gas drilling.

A judge’s pretrial decision this week to allow punitive damages in the consolidated civil legal cases filed against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) following the San Bruno, CA, pipeline explosion two years ago does not lessen the chances of a settlement, a PG&E spokesperson told NGI Thursday.

A legal battle over a Maine Natural Gas (MNG) proposal to build an 80-mile-long natural gas pipeline to Maine’s state capital and the surrounding Kennebec Valley has taken another turn with a lawsuit filed by MNG, which claims a competitor’s previously successful challenge to the project was filed too late.

Attorneys on both sides of the legal battle over Act 13, Pennsylvania’s omnibus Marcellus Shale law, spent two hours in a packed Pittsburgh courtroom Wednesday giving oral arguments before the state Supreme Court.

The extent of the risks associated with development of shale oil and natural gas is “unknown” because existing studies have not taken into account the potential long-term, cumulative effects of the activity, according to a new report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Tuesday. The agency in a companion report did not make any recommendations to change environmental and public health requirements in light of advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Williams CEO Alan Armstrong last week called on the natural gas industry to join the fight against the Sierra Club’s legal challenge the issuance of nationwide permits (NWP) to natural gas pipelines to cross streams/wetlands during the construction of projects. A win by the environmental group in federal court would require pipeline companies to go through the onerous process to obtain individual Section 404 permits under the Clean Water Act (CWA) for each water crossing in their project.