Dr. Scott Tinker, the Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas, and the Texas’ State Geologist, produced and starred in a film a couple of years ago called Switch. It provides an overview of how we use energy in the world and the opportunities and challenges facing…
My clients regularly complain of flares from wells on their property. Most leases don’t require royalty payments on flared gas, so their royalty is going up in smoke. Flares often don’t function properly, resulting in emissions of toxic gases. Flares make noise. The Environmental Defense Fund recently released an excellent…
The DC Court of Appeals and the US District Court for the Northern District of California have struck down orders of the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management postponing compliance dates for the Obama administration’s rules requiring the oil and gas industry to monitor and reduce methane emissions. Both…
The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST) has issued a report on the environmental and community impacts of shale development in Texas. The report can be viewed on the TAMEST website. Its authors reviewed available literature on on six areas of impacts: seismicity, land, water, air, transportation,…
I highly recommend a recent article by Liam Denning in Bloomberg, “Oil’s New World Disorder.” The US’s decreasing dependence on oil imports, and China and India’s increasing dependence on oil, coincide with the possible changing roles of those countries’ navies in policing oil shipping routes from the Middle East. The…
A report from Texans for Public Justice, Public Citizen and the Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter details the contributions made by the oil and gas industry to Texas legislatures’ campaign funds. You can find the report, Running on Hydrocarbons: Oil and Gas Funding to Every Texas Lawmaker, here: http://www.tpj.org/ No…
Public Citizen Texas, an environmental watchdog group, has issued its comments on the Sunset Commission’s report recommending changes at the Texas Railroad Commission. Its comments can be viewed here. The comments largely agree with the Sunset Commission’s recommendations, but in several areas recommend additional reforms. I think Public Citizen’s comments…
The Sunset Commission has scheduled a public hearing August 22, 2016 to hear comments on its staff report on the Texas Railroad Commission. I have written previously about the staff report here, here and here. Information about the scheduled hearing can be found here. The staff’s report on the RRC…
An article by Jim Malewitz in The Texas Tribune, “As Oil Prices Plunge, Questions about Big Tax Credit,” sheds light on an arcane and technical issue not well understood even by most oil and gas lawyers – classification of wells as “oil wells” or “gas wells” by the Texas Railroad…
The rights of local municipalities to regulate or ban drilling activity within their jurisdictions has been a hot topic over the last few years in several states, especially Pennsylvania, Texas and Colorado. Shale development has been intense in all three states, but their reactions to urban drilling regulation have differed…