Regulate

Oil and natural gas companies looking to drill within regulated interstate river basins need to familiarize themselves with issues facing the local river basin commission and take those issues seriously before ultimately deciding whether to drill, an industry attorney said.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed an executive order on Tuesday temporarily giving the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) additional power to regulate wastewater injection wells used by oil and natural gas drilling operations.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) last week took a major step forward to regulate high-frequency trading (HFT) by proposing a definition for the term, which so far has proved to be elusive.

A series of legislative proposals that would allow hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and enact several other changes to North Carolina’s energy policies within two years have cleared an important hurdle and could come to a vote this summer.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday released a draft of its long-awaited guidance to oil and natural gas producers on the use of diesel fuel in hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

A former director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under the last President Bush called the agency’s efforts to regulate hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of oil and natural gas production on public lands “senseless.”

Betting that a shale gas industry may develop in the state in the future, the Illinois Senate on Thursday passed 54-0 a measure (SB 3280) to regulate hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which would require the disclosure of chemicals used in fracking operations.

The Maryland House of Delegates passed two Marcellus Shale regulatory bills on Saturday, adding clarity to how lawmakers expect the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to regulate oil and natural gas operators, as well as several aspects of their drilling activities.

State regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) practices in Arkansas is “well managed and professional” but has room for improvement in a few areas, a recent review found.