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The House Friday passed legislation that would open more federal waters to oil and natural gas exploration and production, but the bill has next to no chance of advancing in the Senate and being signed into law by President Obama.

In another major victory for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, Thursday upheld a lower court’s decision that found the agency did not act illegally in promulgating the Dodd-Frank regulations.

Enbridge Inc.’s hotly contested Northern Gateway pipeline proposal for an oilsands conduit from Edmonton to a new tanker terminal on the northern Pacific Coast at Kitimat, BC, hit another hurdle this week when the Yinka Dene Alliance sent a cease and desist letter, warning Enbridge against trespassing in their traditional territories as the company seeks temporary permits for drilling and tree removal for the pipeline project.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Thursday filed its case against MF Global Inc., MF Global Holdings Ltd. and CEO Jon Corzine and an assistant treasurer for illegal use of customer money, calling for 100% restitution of customer losses totaling approximately $1 billion, plus a $100 million penalty, in the firm’s October 2011 bankruptcy

The 2013 Atlantic Hurricane season is likely to be another active one, but conditions have Weather Services International trimming its forecast, just a bit, to 16 named storms, including nine hurricanes, four of them major (Category 3 or higher), from the previous forecast of 19 named storms, including nine hurricanes, five of them major (see Daily GPI, April 9).

Chicago-based Trillium CNG said Wednesday it plans to build 101 compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling stations spread over 30 states, specializing in fast-fill technology for heavy-duty fleets.

The Senate Thursday unanimously confirmed Anthony Foxx, the mayor of Charlotte, NC, to succeed Ray LaHood as secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT), which oversees the safety of the nation’s natural gas and hazardous pipeline infrastructure, as well as roads, airports and railways.

Under pressure from San Bruno city officials asking for a state probe of its actions and growing internal tensions, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Wednesday reshuffled two key legal positions in the three consolidated penalty cases against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) for the 2010 natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion in San Bruno.

University of Adelaide researchers in Australia are developing a new type of laser system that will monitor methane levels across large areas in order to monitor emissions of the greenhouse gas. The system has the potential to detect methane leaks from long-distance underground gas pipelines and gas fields, including coal seam gas extraction operations, and to measure methane emissions from animal production, the university said. “We hope to accurately measure methane concentrations up to a distance of 5 kilometers,” said project leader David Ottaway, senior lecturer in the university’s School of Chemistry and Physics. “This will give us an ability to map methane over an area as large as 25 square kilometers in a very short time. At the moment current technology only allows detection at a single point source as it blows past the detector.”