Superior

A centerpiece of California’s precedent-setting climate change law (AB 32) was dealt a blow by a San Francisco Superior Court ruling released last Monday that could require a full-blown environmental impact report (EIR) before the proposed cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be implemented. It was set to be effective next year, but could have to wait until at least to 2013.

Halliburton Co.said it has reached an agreement to turn over to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) all documents related to fluids used in the controversial hydraulic fracturing (fracking) process, ending a battle that could have landed in court.

An Alaska Superior Court judge at the end of December ruled that the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was in the right when it rejected the 22nd plan of development for the state’s Point Thomson oil and gas field.

An Alaska Superior Court judge Thursday ruled that the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was in the right when it rejected the 22nd plan of development for the state’s Point Thomson oil and gas field.

The California Superior Court in Los Angeles set a Feb. 11 hearing on Mitsubishi’s Sound Energy Solutions’ (SES) lawsuit seeking to force the Port of Long Beach to completed an unfinished environmental review of SES’s proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the Port of Long Beach. The latest court action came last Friday.

Sempra Energy said last week that it will comply with a California Superior Court judge’s ruling in San Diego that it, along with more than two dozen other energy suppliers, turn over 100 hours of recordings of natural gas trading operations during the state’s 2000-2001 energy crisis.

Sempra Energy indicated Tuesday it will comply with a California Superior Court Judge’s ruling in San Diego that the energy holding company and more than two dozen other energy suppliers turn over 100 hours of tape recordings of natural gas trading operations during the state’s 2000-2001 energy crisis that has spawned numerous lawsuits. The case brought by California municipalities and other large gas users is one of many consolidated under Judge Ronald Prager.

A state Superior Court judge in San Diego Wednesday approved the pending settlement previously announced for Sempra Energy and its two major California utilities in a multi-billion-dollar class action lawsuit.

California Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager in San Diego late Wednesday tentatively upheld Sempra Energy’s $1.8 billion class action settlement and then Thursday heard several hours of objections to the deal from attorneys representing various state and utility interests. California’s attorney general has argued the settlement could preclude several pending legal actions involving Sempra, and the value of the deal is overstated.