A top federal official on Tuesday rejected industry complaints that the Environmental Protection Agency underestimated the costs to drillers to comply with new hydraulic fracturing air pollution regulations.
Oil and gas companies and their trade associations have argued that EPA was wrong to project that drillers will gain up to $19 million in net annual income from the sale of captured methane at natural gas well sites if they complied with the regulations where fracturing is used.
Natural gas producer Devon Energy will tell the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday that the EPA's estimates of greenhouse-gas leakage from fracking operations is inflated, The Hill reports.
The Interior Department on Monday issued final approval for Gasco Energy's Uinta Basin natural gas project in Utah, clearing the way for the company to drill about 1,300 new wells.
The approval comes after Denver-based Gasco agreed to scale back its original 15-year plan to drill 1,500 wells on more than double the 3,600 acres it will develop.
Wyoming’s top regulator of oil and gas development has resigned after he remarked at a conference that greed and desire for compensation motivate people who assert that hydraulic fracturing has contaminated their groundwater, The Associated Press reports.
The National Research Council declared Friday that earthquakes caused by oil and gas drilling are rare and the risks can be further reduced by avoiding sites near fault lines and keeping pressures equalized during extraction and injection.
In a highly anticipated report, the nonprofit scientific research arm of the U.S. government urged industry to concentrate on siting risks before beginning energy projects and for federal agencies to better coordinate responses when suspicions about induced quakes arise.
But the rapidly expanding process known as hydraulic fracturing used to free oil and natural gas from shale deposits poses little risk, the researchers concluded, urging more study.
A new study by the National Research Council, set for release Friday, examines whether wastewater from fracking and other energy technologies that involve deep underground fluid injection can cause earthquakes, The Hill reports.
Landowners along New York’s southern border who support natural gas drilling are cheered by reports that the Cuomo administration is considering allowing hydraulic fracturing on a limited basis only in towns that want it, The Associated Press reports.
An analysis for the Western Energy Alliance finds that proposed federal regulation of fracking operations on public lands could cost as much as $1.6 billion for things like permits and workovers, and discounted lost value of petroleum output, Rigzone reports.
Data obtained by ProPublica shows that oil companies in North Dakota reported more than 1,000 accidental releases of oil, drilling wastewater or other fluids in 2011, about as many as in the previous two years combined. Many more unreported releases occurred when companies dumped truckloads of toxic fluid along the road or drained waste pits illegally. Releases of brine, which is often laced with carcinogenic chemicals and heavy metals, have wiped out aquatic life in streams and wetlands and sterilized farmland.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it would not finish its study of hydraulic fracturing's impact on drinking water until 2016, the Akron Beacon Journal reports.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is pressing Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee against the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg's chemical safety compromise bill on concerns over the bill's strength, Roll Call reports.
A group of 21 states urged the Environmental Protection Agency against releasing rules for carbon emissions from new power plants in response to lawsuit threats, The Hill reports.
The link between natural gas prices and oil prices is increasingly eroding as new supplies of gas are discovered and competition increases, The New York Times reports.
A draft Environmental Protection Agency report faults Washington state for failures in oversight at the contaminated Hanford Nuclear Reservation, The Associated Press reports.
Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Republican Gabriel Gomez were increasingly aggressive in the final Massachusetts Senate debate last night, Politico reports.
Duke Energy's selection of Lynn Good for CEO makes her the company's first female CEO and makes Duke the largest energy company led by a woman, Bloomberg reports.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it discovered dangerous levels of radioactivity in the groundwater surrounding the crippled Fukushima plant, Bloomberg reports.
