Regulatory

FERC has issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) of the Northern Access project proposed by National Fuel Gas Supply Corp. and Empire Pipeline Inc.

It isn’t clear when the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will begin again with an overhaul of environmental regulations for the state’s ailing conventional industry after the General Assembly approved legislation last month to scrap a package that took more than five years to draft.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a proposed plan that it said provides a balance between energy development and conservation for an area of southeastern Utah, but the oil and gas industry slammed it as “redundant.”

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Monday it will conduct environmental review for a proposed oil and gas production well in the 23 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A). If approved, the Greater Mooses Tooth-2 (GMT2) project would be the second oil and gas development project authorized on federal lands in the NPR-A.

Canada announced an accelerated safety schedule Monday for stopping railway crude oil deliveries with an old generation of accident-prone tank cars that had a role in a Quebec tragedy three years ago.

FERC signaled its support for two stalled projects on Tuesday, granting separate extensions to Constitution Pipeline LLC to complete its embattled natural gas pipeline in New York State and Pennsylvania, and to Dominion Transmission Inc. to finish its Clarington project.

Western Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Lease Sale 248, which will offer 23.8 million acres offshore Texas for oil and natural gas exploration and development, will be held Aug. 24 in New Orleans, and will be the first federal offshore oil and gas auction broadcast live on the internet, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

In a ruling that could affect future FERC enforcement actions, a federal judge in Massachusetts denied a motion by the regulatory agency to compel Maxim Power Corp. and its subsidiaries to pay $5 million in fines for allegedly manipulating power markets in New England in 2010.

A Pennsylvania Senate bill that would have rolled back certain provisions of a wide-ranging regulatory package for shale drillers that’s set to take effect soon lost steam last week and failed before the legislature recessed for the summer.