Fracking Regulation / Oversight -- Back To Square One -- September 21, 2017

Updates

September 22, 2017: yesterday Argus Media had a short article on this story (see below for story and link). When I read the article, it did not make sense to me, nor did it seem to be the complete story. I thought there must be more. In fact, there is. It turns out there is quite a bit more to it and this whole issue is a long way from being settled. The good news is that previous changes were accomplished by executive orders / rule-changing under the Obama administration, not by Congress.

A much more complete story is now posted by The Oil & Gas Journal.

A federal appeals court in Denver dismissed six environmental organizations’ appeal of a district court’s decision invalidating the US Bureau of Land Management’s regulation of hydraulic fracturing at oil and gas operations on onshore public lands. But the US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals also vacated the lower court’s ruling in the Sept. 21 decision and dismissed the appeal without prejudice, leading at least one environmental group to say that the decision affirmed BLM’s authority to regulate fracing.

The presidents of the Independent Petroleum Association of America in Washington and the Western Energy Alliance in Denver separately applauded the court’s decision to dismiss the appeal, which was pending as a new US president was elected and his administration began to rescind BLM’s fracing regulation.

“Given these changed and changing circumstances, we conclude these appeals are prudentially unripe. As a result, we dismiss these appeals and remand with directions to vacate the district court’s opinion and dismiss the action without prejudice,” Appeals Court Judge Mary Beck Briscoe wrote in the decision.

IPAA and WEA originally sued to overturn the BLM final fracing rule on Mar. 20, 2015. Judge Scott W. Skavdahl of US District Court for Wyoming set the regulation aside more than a year later after finding the agency did not have the necessary congressional authority to impose it.

“Today’s court decision confirms what IPAA has advocated all along: Dismissing the appeal would protect independent producers from the uncertainty of whether it was necessary to comply with regulations that are certain to be revoked,” IPAA Pres. Barry Russell said. “All three judges ruled unanimously that it would be a waste of judicial resources to proceed with this case.”  

Original Post

From Argus Media:

US court scraps limits on fracking oversight.

The decision marks a major victory for environmentalists, who said that keeping the 2016 ruling intact would have stripped the government's authority from regulating fracturing.

Sierra Club staff attorney Nathan Matthews said the decision would reinstate regulations that were developed under former president Barack Obama but never came into force.

Affects Federal and tribal land. 

Finally, The AP's "Big Story": Judge Rules Obama's Ban On Fracking Illegal -- June 22, 2016

Earlier today I said there seemed to be so much energy news it was hard to keep up.  I completely missed this story and would not have seen it had it not been for a reader who sent me the link (thank you very much). I posted the story and remarked that it was a big story, wondering why mainstream media had not picked it up. Someone must have seen that. The AP now calls it "the big story": Judge: US agency lacks authority to set rules on fracking.

Wow.

The story is hard to find in the mainstream media. It's not at Yahoo!Finance. It's not on the first page of Finance Google. Drudge Report? Nope. Huffington Post? Nope. But there it is, finally, over at the AP.

A judge ruled Tuesday that federal regulators lack the authority to set rules for hydraulic fracturing, dealing another setback to the Obama administration's efforts to tighten how fossil fuels are mined.
U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl said the Bureau of Land Management can't set the rules because Congress has not authorized it to do so. The judge, who was nominated by Obama in 2011, wrote that the court's role is not to decide whether hydraulic fracturing is good or bad for the environment, but to interpret whether Congress has given the Department of Interior legal authority to regulate the practice.

So, the big stories the past couple of days:

• Panama Canal expansion completed; ready for the "big ships" next week
• the Tesla - SolarCity story
• Obama's regulation banning fracking overturned
• Dakota Access Pipeline allowed to proceed "under" tribal burial grounds in Iowa
• crude oil hitting $50
• the rise of India

States WIth Federal Lands Producing Oil Subject To New Fracking Rules -- March 24, 2015

CNBC provides this data:

The state that could be most affected by proposed federal fracking rules is not top U.S. crude producer Texas or booming North Dakota. It's Wyoming. 

The U.S. government released its first regulations for hydraulic fracturing.

The new guidelines apply only to exploration on federal and Native American land.

Wyoming was home to the most oil- and gas-producing acreage on federal lands in fiscal year 2014. More than 4 million acres were producing oil and gas in the state last year. New Mexico came in second, with 3.7 million million acres, followed by Colorado's 1.5 million acres.

Acres producing oil and gas on federal land (source: Bureau of Land Management, FY 2014):

• Wyoming: 4,033,994
• New Mexico, 3,727,864
• Colorado: 1,478,105
• Utah: 1,119,366
• Montana: 766,544
• North Dakota: 570,645
• Texas: 162,102
• Oklahoma: 141,496
• Arkansas: 121,558
• Kansas: 109,552

Since 1985, Wyoming has issued the most permits to drill on U.S. government-owned turf by far. It approved 40,360 permits over the last two decades, compared with New Mexico's 28,066 approvals and Utah's 10,957.

President Obama Says Fracking On Federal Land Okay -- Just Be Safe -- March 20, 2015

Folks a lot smarter than I can tell me that I'm wrong, but this story does not sound particularly alarming.

Reuters provides a very, very superficial look at the new rules for fracking on federal lands. About the only information:

The rules require energy companies to reinforce boreholes and otherwise prevent leakage and provide data on the cocktail of chemicals that helps extract crude oil and gas out of the ground. The rules will add transparency to the practice, long shrouded by companies reluctant to reveal "trade secrets."

Most companies are providing data regarding the "cocktails."

New York State, of course, will still ban fracking while they study the issue for another 14 years.

Hell Just Froze Over: The Feds Will Allow Fracking In Nation's Largest Forest In The Eastern United States -- November 17, 2014

The AP is reporting:

Environmentalists and energy boosters alike welcomed a federal compromise announced Tuesday that will allow fracking in the largest national forest in the eastern United States, but make most of its woods off-limits to drilling.

The decision was highly anticipated because about half of the George Washington National Forest sits atop the Marcellus shale formation, a vast underground deposit of natural gas that runs from upstate New York to West Virginia and yields more than $10 billion in gas a year.

The federal management plan reverses an outright ban on hydraulic fracturing that the U.S. Forest Service had proposed in 2011 for the 1.1 million-acre forest, which includes the headwaters of the James and Potomac rivers. Those rivers feed the Chesapeake Bay, which is the focus of a multibillion-dollar, multistate restoration directed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

This is a bigger deal than the vote on the Keystone.

Note: the environmentalists have a completely different take on it but the fact remains:

The final forest plan released Tuesday includes differences from the Forest Service’s draft plan for the area. The draft plan, for example, would have banned the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — or ‘fracking’ — techniques in the national forest, a provision that the oil and gas industry strongly opposed. Industry groups argued this provision would set a precedent for prohibiting fracking techniques in other national forests.

Robert Bonnie, U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary for Natural Resources and the Environment, said, “from a policy perspective, the Forest Service allows fracking on forest lands throughout the country. We didn’t want to make a policy decision or change policy related to fracking. This decision is about where it’s appropriate to do oil and gas leasing.”

Two more years. 

BLM Extends Comment Period For Another 60 Days -- Fracking -- The Tea Leaves Are Swirling

Oil and Gas Journal is reporting:

Oil and gas producers will have another 60 days to comment on the US Bureau of Land Management’s latest proposed regulations for hydraulic fracturing operations on onshore public lands, US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced.

“Thousands of comments have been made on the proposed hydraulic fracturing rule,” she told the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Many which responded to the original proposal led us to revise it and issue a second one. I’m announcing now that we’re going to give people an extra 60 days to comment on the latest proposal.”

The secretary said improving federal oil and gas permit application processing remains a top priority, but progress will be limited because of ongoing federal budget sequestration impacts.

“We want to bring the lessons we learned offshore onshore,” Jewell said. “There’s a need to streamline the permitting process. These formations cross state lines. Unfortunately, sequestration is forcing us to limit activity in offices where there’s the greatest need. We are trying to address this.”

Sequestration also is preventing DOI from sharing onshore federal oil and gas revenue with states where such activity is located, she continued. “We appreciate the importance of this to the states, but we are required to comply with the law,” she said.

The tea leaves are swirling.

Federal Fracking Rules To Be Announced This Afternoon -- Platts

Updates

May 17, 2013: Oil & Gas Journal reporting the story. 

May 17, 2013: Rigzone has four-page in-depth article on these new rules.

Later, 6:32 pm: here it is. Minot Daily News is reporting:

The rule proposed Thursday relies on an online database used by Colorado and 10 other states to track the chemicals used in fracking operations. FracFocus.org is a website formed by industry and intergovernmental groups in 2011 that allows users to gather well-specific data on thousands of sites.

Perfect.

Original Post

Platts is reporting:

US Interior expected to release new version of fracking rule for federal and Indian lands at 3 p.m. EDT. 

No link provided.

Now That Lisa Jackson's Leaving ...

 BLM pulls proposed fracking rules, will work on new version. Multiple sources. Here is a link to the Oil & Gas Journal:

The US Bureau of Land Management withdrew its proposed hydraulic fracturing regulations and announced that a new draft will be prepared during 2013’s first quarter. BLM is preparing a new version in response to the more than 170,000 comments it received to the original proposal, the US Department of the Interior said on Jan. 18.

It's also my understanding the Interior Secretary has tendered his resignation. 

Here is one from Ohio.

API President and CEO Jack Gerard welcomed the Bureau of Land Management decision to take proposed federal hydraulic fracturing regulations back to the drawing board.

“API asked the administration to reconsider the rules, and we welcome this move as a positive first step.” said Gerard. “However, the real test will be in the substance of the re-proposal. We hope the administration will recognize the strong oversight provided by existing state and federal regulations and take sufficient time to review the many thoughtful comments provided by the oil and natural gas industry and others. Effective regulation of hydraulic fracturing already exists in the states. Conflicting or duplicative federal requirements would delay development of abundant domestic oil and natural gas and threaten jobs and revenue to the federal treasury, without providing additional environmental protection.”

Acknowledging the states' existing authority of shale energy development, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said “you can't start to talk about a federal role without acknowledging the very strong state role.”