Order

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett issued an executive order Friday lifting a moratorium on new oil and gas leases in state parks and forests and replacing it with a measure that will allow such leases, provided the drilling occurs on nearby land and surfaces in the parks and forests are not disturbed.

Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Corbett could soon issue an executive order to lift a nearly four-year moratorium on new oil and gas leases in state parks and forests that would continue to bar new leases for surface operations, but offer operators access to the mineral rights under state land from wells on adjoining private land.

FERC on Thursday gave unanimous approval to an order upholding its denial of Enterprise Products Partners and Enbridge’s application for authority to charge market-based rates on its reversed Seaway crude oil pipeline.

Emera CNG LLC, a would-be exporter of compressed natural gas to the Caribbean, has applied at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for export authorization employing a “little guys to the front of the line” rationale.

At FERC’s 1,000th meeting Thursday, former commissioners who had a major hand in opening both the natural gas and electricity markets to competition, reminisced about how the agency has evolved from a relatively obscure regulator to one that is at the center of domestic energy delivery.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) latest authorization to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to non-free trade agreement (FTA) countries bends the agency’s own rules and sends a “troubling” message, an LNG export advocate told NGI.

A Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) order issued last year that required utilities to enter into long-term power supply contracts with a developer chosen by the PSC to build a natural gas-fired plant was invalidated by a U.S. District Court judge Monday.

FERC Monday ordered BP America Inc. and affiliates to show cause in a long-running case [IN13-15] involving the alleged gaming of the physical and financial markets at the Houston Ship Channel (HSC). The Commission proposed a near-$29 million penalty for transactions taking place from mid-September 2008 through Nov. 30, 2008.

Pressure is mounting inside and outside Washington, DC, for the Department of Transportation (DOT) to order the retrofit or phase-out DOT-111 tank cars that are used to transport crude oil and ethanol by rail. Proponents of the effort note that a number of the tank cars involved in the fiery crash of tanker cars carrying Bakken crude in Quebec earlier this month were DOT-111 cars.