Regulatory

President Obama Tuesday extended indefinitely a four-year-old freeze for oil and natural gas leasing in the waters of Alaska’s Bristol Bay, a move criticized by industry representatives.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will face a $60 million cut in its funding and will have to cut staff to the lowest level since 1989 if President Obama signs the $1.01 trillion spending bill that passed both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support.

American Midstream Partners LP notified FERC on Thursday that it has reached a settlement over plans to abandon its 88-year-old Midla pipeline system in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Williams Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC (Transco) has applied at FERC for an expansion of its system in Louisiana to serve the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal of Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC.

Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have passed a bipartisan bill designed to help propane distributors and customers withstand shortages and price spikes. The bill on Friday was headed to President Obama’s desk for his signature.

A $1.1 trillion omnibus spending plan that would fund the federal government through the middle of 2015 — which was approved by the House late Thursday and expected to be approved by the Senate Saturday — includes a provision revising a key portion of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Interior Department officials on Friday remained optimistic that state-federal measures dealing with protecting the sage grouse will be worked out despite a Congressional move in the trillion-dollar omnibus appropriations bill to include a provision barring the federal department from moving forward on Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections (see Daily GPI, Dec. 11 ).

An oil and natural gas lease sale by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for the Ely District in northeast Nevada on Tuesday ran into apparent uncertainty about sage grouse habitat, with only one bid for a single 473-acre parcel.

In an unusual ad hoc session outside its normal chambers, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday morning voted to advance the nomination of Colette D. Honorable to become a commissioner at FERC.