A study group sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has issued a report, The Future of Natural Gas, the fourth in a series of MIT multidisciplinary reports examinging the role of various energy sources and the effects of carbon dioxide emissions restraints. The full 170-page report can be found…
Fracking has become more and more a topic in the general media and part of the state and federal environmental energy agenda, with new stories appearing daily. A sample: Secretary of Energy Steveb Chu has appointed an advisory panel, officially called the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board’s subcommittee on natural gas,…
The Texas Supreme Court has once again overturned a jury verdict in favor of royalty owners, finding “no evidence” to support the jury’s finding. The court’s opinion in the case, BP America Production Company, Atlantic Richfield Company and Vastar Resources, Inc. v. Stanley G. Marshall, Jr., et al., No. 09-0399,…
Researchers at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University have written an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled “Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing,” which finds “systematic evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shale-gas…
Other than the oil and gas lease itself, the division order is undoubtedly the most common legal instrument mineral owners are asked to sign. Mineral owners should know the purpose of a division order, what rights and obligations it imposes on them, and the division order’s relation to the oil…
The April issue of Discover, published by Kalmbach Publishing Co., contains an article on the potential environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing in gas shales, “Fracking Nation,” by Linda Marsa. Much of the article simply repeats allegations being made by environmental groups and landowners of alleged groundwater contamination by shale wells.…
Items of interest recently in the news: On March 25, the Texas Railroad Commission adopted its examiners’ recommended decision finding that Range Resources was not responsible for water-well contamination in Parker County, Texas. (For my previous posts on this controversy, go here and here.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which had…
The Texas Supreme Court has reversed a decision of the Austin Court of Appeals holding that the Texas Railroad Commission must consider traffic issues in deciding whether to issue a permit for an injection well to Pioneer Exploration, Ltd. in Wise County. In its decision, the Court held that, in…
The EPA has issued its draft plan to study the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water in the U.S. Two state regulatory authorities have absolved frac’ed wells from responsibility for contaminating drinking water in Colorado and Texas. Maryland’s top einvornmental regulator urged lawmakers to impose a two-year moratorium on…
Recently some of my clients have received notices of class action settlements in Coll v. Abaco Operating, LLC, et al., in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, C.A. No. 2:08-CV-345 TJW. The case reveals a little-known aspect of royalty payments: many companies never reimburse…