Moratorium

Pennsylvania regulators are lifting a five-year moratorium on natural gas drilling in state forests and later this year may auction 75,000 acres that cross into the Marcellus Shale and Trenton-Black River formations. The move is significant because the Marcellus Shale is said to be the home of anywhere from 1.9 Tcf to 168 Tcf, depending on whom you ask.

Sierra Pacific Resources executives are resisting U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) call for a national moratorium on construction of traditional coal-fired power plants, such as the Nevada utility holding company’s proposed Ely Energy Center in eastern Nevada.

Sierra Pacific Resources executives are resisting U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) call for a national moratorium on construction of traditional coal-fired power plants, such as the Nevada utility holding company’s proposed Ely Energy Center in eastern Nevada.

The Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday approved a Republican amendment that authorizes up to $10 million for the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service to conduct a seismic inventory of oil and natural gas resources in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Florida senators have vowed to do everything in their power to block the proposal on the Senate floor.

The House late Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a Republican amendment that would have lifted the congressional moratorium on natural gas-only drilling off the East and West Coasts.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has imposed an “indefinite” moratorium on an environmental review of a potential natural gas drilling site on the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana in response to stiff local opposition. It plans to re-direct federal funds that were allotted for review of that project to another drilling prospect outside of the Front area where there is “more drilling [activity] and less controversy,” said a spokesman for BLM’s Montana State Office.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over the weekend imposed an “indefinite” moratorium on an environmental review of a potential natural gas drilling site on the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana in response to stiff local opposition, and it plans to re-direct federal funds that were allotted for review of that project to another drilling prospect outside of the Front area where there is “more drilling [activity] and less controversy,” said a spokesman for BLM’s Montana State Office.

A regulatory expert last week called on FERC to impose amoratorium on awarding market-based rates for primarytransportation capacity due to the expected continued “monopoly”nature of major interstate pipelines.