Regulatory

Republican Donald J. Trump will take office in January after scoring a major upset in the presidential election Tuesday, defeating Hillary Clinton.

Canada’s Liberal government has recruited experts in adapting projects and regulations to environmental, community and aboriginal concerns for a panel mandated to chart a course to “modernize” the National Energy Board (NEB).

Republican Wayne Christian was elected to fill the open seat on the three-member Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC), beating his Democrat challenger, a retired school teacher; a Green Party candidate; and a Libertarian who is a retired petroleum engineer.

Four industry trade groups on Monday submitted requests to the Department of Interior and its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) seeking information about why changes were made to financial assurances and bonding requirements for Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas producers.

As the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign draws to a close, analysts and industry experts appear to agree that national energy policies enacted under the Obama administration will continue along a similar trajectory if Hillary Clinton is elected president, but face a major overhaul if Donald Trump wins.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has automated the way members of the public and industry nominate lands for possible oil and natural gas development, the agency said Monday.

As the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign draws to a close, analysts and industry experts appear to agree that national energy policies enacted under the Obama administration will continue along a similar trajectory if Hillary Clinton is elected president, but face a major overhaul if Donald Trump wins.

The Sierra Club was again turned back in its efforts to compel FERC to weigh the indirect effects of increased natural gas drilling stemming from exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the challenge to the permitting of Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi LNG export terminal. The court said Friday that the Commission did not have to address the anticipated effects of natural gas exports as it is the U.S. Department of Energy that licenses such exports, not the Commission [15-1133]. The court reached the same conclusion in previous LNG cases brought by Sierra Club (see Daily GPI,June 28). Sierra Club also was thwarted in its challenge to the project based on greenhouse gas emissions. “…Petitioner’s arguments regarding greenhouse gas emissions have no merit,” the court said. “This court has already considered and rejected identical arguments relating to the social cost of carbon.”

North Dakota’s Industrial Commission (IC) on Monday approved held-over rules from the state legislature’s Rules Committee, clarifying and/or updating bonding, natural gas gathering pipeline, oil and produced water lines and oil/gas facility berm requirements. They are slated to be effective Jan. 1.