A lot has been written lately about the amount of groundwater being used for hydraulic fracturing in shale plays – particularly in the Eagle Ford Shale, and more recently in the Permian Basin. This raises the question whether — and to what extent — exploration companies’ water wells used in…
Controversial EPA Administrator Al Armendariz has resigned his post as Administrator of Region 6, which includes Texas, after Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) called for an investigation of the EPA’s actions related to oil and gas exploration. Armendariz was previously a professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Prior to his…
Fortune Magazine’s April issue has three good articles on the resurgence of oil and gas exploration and production activity US onshore. The lead article, “Exxon’s Big Bet on Shale Gas,” provides a good summary of the growth and success of unconventional shale plays in the US in the last 8-10 years.…
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.…
EPA Dismisses Suit Against Range The Environmental Protection Agency has thrown in the towel. It dismissed its suit against Range Resources that sought to enforce its emergency order claiming that Range was responsible for contamination of water wells in Parker County. See Bloomberg’s article here. I have previously written about…
I love graphs. The Energy Information Administration, the guys that crunch numbers on all things energy-related, have come up with a new way to let us graph-lovers play with their data. The new interface is in its beta testing version, and you can play with it here. The site allows…
Rolling Stone magazine’s Jeff Goodell has weighed in on the debate over natural gas reserves, the safety of hydraulic fracturing, global warming, methane groundwater contamination, and Chesapeake Energy’s controversial finances, in an article titled “The Big Fracking Bubble: The Scam Behind the Gas Boom.” Goodell pulled no punches. He calls…
This week, the Texas Supreme Court denied Denbury Green Pipeline’s motion for rehearing in Texas Rice Land Partners v. Denbury, leaving essentially untouched its conclusion that pipelines must prove that they serve the public in order to exercise eminent domain power. I wrote about this case a couple of weeks…
The Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion today in Edwards Aquifer Authority v. Day, more than a year after it was argued and some thirteen years after the controversy began. It has been eagerly awaited as the court’s ruling on whether a landowner has a “vested” right in groundwater under…
Because of the Texas Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Texas Rice Land Partners v. Denbury Pipeline, Texas landowners across the state are questioning the right of pipeline companies to exercise the right of eminent domain to condemn easements over their land, including the right of Keystone Pipeline to condemn easements for…