Official

With the current La Nina event expected to continue to fade, temperatures over the next three months will average cooler than normal across the northern United States, while above-normal temperatures will dominate the nation’s southern tier, according to Andover, MA-based WSI Corp. The fading La Nina — a cooling of ocean surface temperatures off the western coast of South America — also prompted WSI to reduce the number of tropical storms it is forecast for the 2010 hurricane season, which officially begins June 1.

An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official told a Senate panel earlier this week that the agency is committed to cooperating with states to oversee the practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

With just less than two months still to go before the official start of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, the prognosis appears to be for a season featuring above-average activity, according to the outlooks from a couple of highly respected forecasters.

With two months still to go before the official start of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, the prognosis appears to be for a season featuring above-average activity, according to the outlooks from a couple of highly respected forecasters.

Water use in Marcellus Shale drilling “may not be as big an issue as we originally thought it was,” a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) official told a natural gas forum on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, last Wednesday.

Water use in Marcellus Shale drilling “may not be as big an issue as we originally thought it was,” a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) official told a natural gas forum on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, last Wednesday.

While Quebec’s announcement that hydraulic fracturing could continue on a limited basis has divided people in the province, a government official in the neighboring province of New Brunswick said a moratorium on the practice won’t be implemented there.

A Louisiana government official’s statement that the state will see a decrease in tax revenues in coming years due to natural gas drillers moving their operations from taxable areas in southern Louisiana to tax-exempt fields in northern Louisiana “could not be further from the truth,” according to Louisiana Oil & Gas Association (LOGA) President Don Briggs.

A Louisiana government official’s statement that the state will see a decrease in tax revenues in coming years due to natural gas drillers moving their operations from taxable areas in South Louisiana to tax-exempt fields in North Louisiana “could not be further from the truth,” according to Louisiana Oil & Gas Association (LOGA) President Don Briggs.