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J. Christopher Giancarlo, executive vice president of the brokerage firmGFI Group Inc., has been nominated byPresident Obamato fill an opening on theCommodity Futures Trading Commission(CFTC). If confirmed by the Senate, Giancarlo would replaceJill Sommers, who resigned in July (seeNGI,July 8). The term begun by Sommers ends in April 2014. Giancarlo has been with GFI since 2001. Previously, he was the executive vice president atFenics Ltd., a partner withBrown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steinerand from 1992-1997, a founding partner withGiancarlo & Gleiberman. A former chairman of theWholesale Market Brokers’ Association Americas, Giancarlo received an undergraduate degree from Skidmore College and a juris doctor from Vanderbilt University School of Law. Giancarlo, like Sommers, would serve as a Republican at CFTC. No more than three members of the five-member commission may be from the same political party. The CFTC currently consists of DemocratsBart Chilton,Mark Wetjenand ChairmanGary Gensler, RepublicanScott O’Malia, and the seat vacated by Sommers.

The Rocky Mountain area provided years of solid natural gas growth until an upstart called shale oil came along. Now the massive region is providing both, with operators showing that from a lot, they can produce a lot. Here’s a review of area developments surfacing over the past week in 2Q earnings reports from several operators.

The Heinz Endowments — a Pittsburgh-based philanthropic organization that has given millions to both supporters and opponents of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) — has caused a stir with its abrupt dismissal of its environmental program director, and indications it will be going in new directions.

Producers reporting their operations results in 2Q2013 over the past week indicate no let-up in the work to be done, with liquids/oil growth from the Eagle Ford funding forays into the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS).

Thirteen days after Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett signed a controversial drilling bill into law, the debate over how it will affect Marcellus Shale development has taken a new turn after EQT Corp. filed a lawsuit against 69 landowners and a golf course in Allegheny County, PA.

Smack dab in the middle of the country to the Texas coast, unconventional producers have reported strengthening oil and natural gas output between April and June, with strong contributions from the Permian Basin along with the Fayetteville and Woodford and liquids growth in the Barnett shales.

Just days after a seventh justice was sworn in to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the Public Utility Commission (PUC) submitted a request that the high court reconsider its decision to quash an appeal by the commission regarding enforcement of Act 13, the state’s omnibus Marcellus Shale law.

In the six years spanning 2007 through 2012, total U.S. private sector employment increased by more than one million jobs, or about 1%. However, over the same period, the oil and gas industry — segmented into drilling, extraction and support segments — increased by more than 162,000 jobs, which equates to a 40% increase,” according to a new study from the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Chesapeake Energy Corp. no longer wants to fight the state of New York’s moratorium on unconventional drilling and is allowing leases it holds in the Southern Tier to expire.