By L. Gil White U. S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Democrats have given the public lands subcommittee gavel to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), his office said. Manchin takes the Public Lands, Forests and Mining Subcommittee gavel from... Read More
On Sept. 7, 2011, the Pennsylvania Superior Court issued an opinion in Butler v. Charles Powers Estate , 2011 PA Super 198, 2011 Pa. Super. LEXIS 2710 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2011), that creates uncertainty for developers and gas/mineral owners alike ( Click... Read More
By William Perry Pendley DENVER - Energy operators in Pennsylvania, after a victory before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia in September 2011, on March 5 urged a Pennsylvania federal district court to issue a final ruling... Read More
By Jim Dougherty On December 22, 2011, [Pennsylvania] Governor Corbett signed into law the Gas and Hazardous Liquids Pipeline Act ("Act 127") that expands the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's ("PUC" or "Commission"... Read More
States' recent passion for renewable energy appears to be running out of steam. Sixteen of the 29 states with renewable portfolio standards are considering legislation that would scale back those mandates, according to the North Carolina Solar Center... Read More
Pennsylvania's Farmland and Forestland Assessment Act, more commonly known as the "Clean and Green Act," (72 Pa. C.S. § 5490.1 et seq. ) provides preferential tax treatment to property owners who agree to devote lands to agricultural... Read More
By Kathy Milenkovski. On October 30, 2013, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (“PUCO”) finalized rules proposed late last year to implement new requirements brought about by the enactment of Senate Bill 315 and to clarify the applicability... Read More
My partner Dean Pappas and I recently had an article published by Best's Review (February 2012) that looks at the potential risks that arise from hydrofracking operations, and the extent to which a typical homeowner's insurance policy covers the... Read More
By Armando F. Benincasa and G. Kurt Dettinger On April 9, 2013, the House Judiciary Committee amended SB 243, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection ("WVDEP") rules bill which includes the promulgation of permanent legislative... Read More
By Lawrence A. Kogan Excerpt: This article questions the extent to which U.S. continental shelf seabed mining policy, as reflected in the U.S. administration's recently issued five-year OCS development plan and accompanying agency regulations... Read More
By Russell L. Schetroma and Adam Curtis The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) released its first report on Monday on the impact fees resulting from the state's new Marcellus shale law, dubbed Act 13 . The PUC is the agency in charge... Read More
On October 10, 2012, as a follow-up to its December 2011 draft report concerning allegations of groundwater contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming, the EPA released the methodology and results for additional water samples collected from two monitoring wells... Read More
By Brian Pulito and Jamie Little On March 20, 2013, in a 32-page opinion, President Judge Debbie O'Dell-Seneca of the Court of Common Pleas for Washington County, Pennsylvania ordered that a sealed, court-approved settlement between Plaintiffs... Read More
In response to the continued violence in Syria, today the European Union expanded its sanctions against that country by banning exports for critical sectors. The new sanctions provide a list of equipment, technology and software for the oil and gas industry... Read More
By Armando F. Benincasa The final New Source Performance Standard (NSPS) for the oil and natural gas sector was published in the Federal Register and will become effective on October 15, 2012. The key component of the final rules is a requirement... Read More