Texans for Public Justice, www.tpj.org, issued its report on 2012 Election Cycle Spending by Texas political action committees. You can see it here. Some highlights: Of the $70 million spent by Texas business PACs in 2011-12, $11.9 million, or 9%, was spent by PACs devoted to energy and natural resources…
The Sunset Commission’s final report on the results of its recommendations for reform of the Texas Railroad Commission can be found here. The report’s summary: Summary of Final Results S.B. 212 Nichols (D. Bonnen) — Not Enacted For the second consecutive legislative session the Railroad Commission’s Sunset bill failed passage.…
Colleen Schreiber has written an excellent article in the June 13 edition of Livestock Weekly, “Landowners Hold Off Oil and Gas Lobby on Common Carrier Bills,” describing the blow-by-blow negotiations and lobbying in the pipeline industry’s efforts to “solve” the problems created by the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Tex.…
Terrence Henry, a writer for StateImpact Texas, has written a recent article, “Why Oil and Gas Lobbyists Were Big Spenders in Texas.” He analyzes two reports on spending on lobbyists and campaigns compiled by Texans for Public Justice. Lobbyists for energy and natural resources companies spent between $31.4 million and $62.5…
The session is over, and the Texas legislature has failed once again to pass sunset legislation for the Texas Railroad Commission. The legislature instead authorized continuation of the RRC for another four years, with sunset review to be repeated in the 2017 legislative session. Under Texas sunset act, every state…
A client recently suggested that I should write about landfarming – the practice of disposing of drilling mud and cuttings by spreading it over land. Drilling mud is the common term for the fluid used in the process of drilling a well. It is made up of a mixture of…
In a prior post, I wrote about a new development at the Texas Railroad Commission: granting permits for “allocation wells” – horizontal wells drilled across lease lines without pooling the leases. Since I wrote that post, our firm was retained to represent the parties protesting EOG Resources’ application for a permit…
Texas’ Sunset Advisory Commission has issued its recommendations for changes at the Texas Railroad Commission. The report can be found here. The RRC was up for regular Sunset review in 2010, and the Sunset Commission issued a report recommending several changes then, including abolishing the three-member elected Commission and replacing…
I have recently become aware of recent changes in Texas Railroad Commission policies regarding “production sharing agreements” and “allocation wells” that deserve some comment. Some background is necessary to understand these recent developments. Over the last couple of years I have been asked to review and explain proposed “production sharing…
In its 2009 Legislative Session, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2259, whose stated purpose is to ensure that inactive oil and gas wells get plugged and that surface equipment associated with those wells gets removed. I provided a summary of the bill’s terms in a post on this site.…