A Washington D.C. federal judge upheld the Bureau of Land Management’s greenhouse gas and climate impact analysis, conducted in connection with six 2022 federal onshore oil and gas lease sales. A coalition of environmental plaintiff organizations sued to challenge...
If you haven’t been paying attention to Regional Haze, it’s time to start. While the focus has been on the many new federal rules coming out, the Regional Haze Rule is already in place and set to make a big impact on the fossil fuel industry as EPA starts reviewing...
In the oil and gas regulatory environment, operators are familiar with the following increasingly common pattern. As part of the process of pooling the working interests in a drilling and spacing unit (“DSU”), an operator sends AFEs and election letters to working...
EPA’s New Climate Enforcement Policy and Third-Party Monitoring Program Is EPA’s new third-party methane super-emitter monitoring and reporting program the camel’s nose under the tent? In the classic fable, on a cold night, a camel asks his owner if he could put his...
As all serious skiers know, consistent year-round quad, leg, and core workouts are critical to maximizing a fun, rewarding, and safe ski season. For the oil and gas industry, there is a new quad workout that demands even more attention and dedicated work to ensure...
Federal leaseholders should expect to see a series of final rules issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 2024, aimed at updating BLM’s land management and environmental regulations. While many of the underlying proposed rules were labeled as “updates” to...
Since 2015, the environmental plaintiff industry has been filing sweeping lawsuits challenging the federal onshore oil and gas program. The scope of these lawsuits, and the judicial relief requested, raise significant constitutional issues on plaintiff organizations’...
On May 25, 2023, the United States Supreme Court again weighed in on what is to be considered a “water of the United States” (“WOTUS”) under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) in Sackett v. EPA, 143 S. Ct. 1322 (2023). The fundamental holding in Sackett is that the only...
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently proposed raising the minimum bonding requirements by a factor of 15 for individual federal leases, raising the minimum amount from $10,000 to $150,000, and by a factor of 20 for statewide bonds, raising the minimum amount...
The Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) adopted new rules governing carbon capture and sequestration and storage at its August 22, 2023, Open Meeting. The rules go into effect on September 11, 2023, and are intended to align with the requirements of Environmental...
