Responsibility

Responding in part to the public outcry over hydraulic fracturing (fracking), ASTM International has created a subcommittee to develop consensus standards that would provide best practices for the fracking of oil and natural gas wells in shale formations.

President Obama’s fiscal 2013 budgets for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Interior (DOI) propose funding directed at assessing the impact of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of shale.

Employment in the core industries that drive Marcellus Shale development in Pennsylvania more than doubled to 20,837 people between 2008 and 2011, while employment in ancillary industries dropped by around 1% to 193,813, according the Center for Workforce Information and Analysis (CWIA) at the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) reintroduced legislation last Tuesday to increase regulations on hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking).

Amaranth LLC, also known as “the Fund,” Monday asked FERC to dismiss charges that it shares the responsibility for Amaranth Advisors’ alleged manipulation of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) natural gas futures contract, which subsequently influenced the price of jurisdictional physical gas transactions in 2006.

Leaseholders on the Piceance Basin’s South Shale Ridge in Colorado last week were said to be “stuck in a schoolyard fight” between environmental groups and federal agencies after a judge ordered all activity to a halt.

There is such a thing as too much transparency, the U.S. Justice Department told FERC in comments on the Commission’s consideration of how to use its new responsibility to ensure market transparency under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Justice advised that dissemination of company-specific or transaction-specific information could harm consumers by allowing companies to coordinate activities and drive prices up [AD06-11].

The natural gas industry bears as much of the responsibility for avoiding permitting delays and minimizing conflicts as do federal and state regulators, according to a new study issued by the INGAA Foundation Monday.

Calling it a “corporate responsibility,” the chairman of Duke Energy Corp. said Thursday that the company will lobby for a tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to help with the global climate change — even though it could mean higher prices for his customers.