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Al Armendariz, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Dallas office, resigned Monday following public outcry over his remarks supporting a “crucify them” approach to enforcement of the oil and natural gas industry.

The North American drilling rig count should average 2,400 rigs in 2012, up 5% from a year ago, but it won’t take its traditional natural gas trajectory, Baker Hughes Inc. executives said last week. Operators are “drastically” shifting from gas targets, and Baker is seeing the beginnings of a “tidal wave” preparing to ride into the Permian Basin.

Salt Lake City-based Questar Corp. has launched a business unit to take advantage of potential growth in the natural gas transportation fueling business, especially trucking fleets, senior executives said Wednesday during a 1Q2012 earnings conference call.

The U.S. government and private energy analysts appear to have come to a foregone conclusion that the domestic natural gas drilling rig count will take a dive in 2013, but if any are “blindly assuming” that the U.S. oil rig count will “continue to move up and to the right,” they may be wrong, said the team at Raymond James & Associates Inc.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) on Monday filed a final report on its reclassification of its pipelines, but it said validating operating pressures will take more time. As result of the latest effort, nearly 10% of the utility’s natural gas transmission pipelines (544 miles, or 2,837 segments) had classifications changed.

Skepticism of conventional wisdom is rarely out of place, particularly in the energy patch. But when the oil and gas industry is dealing with consumers, citizens and landowners, sincerity is the order of the day.

California Gov. Jerry Brown said last Friday that he plans to take a closer look at the oil/gas industry’s use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the state, speaking at a renewable energy conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and to news media afterwards.

While it is currently straining its balance sheet to accelerate infrastructure buildout, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. likes its strategic positioning to take advantage of what it considers now widespread acceptance of natural gas as the alternative fuel of choice for large trucks and a new national network of fueling stations it expects to be in place by next year, CEO Andrew Littlefair told financial analysts on an earnings call reporting more red ink for the Seal Beach, CA-based firm.

An environmental group is suing Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, claiming that his administration is misusing revenue from Marcellus Shale development on state lands. Although Corbett is being sued, most of the actions cited in the litigation first were undertaken by his predecessor Ed Rendell.