Energy Legal Blog

Institutional Shareholder Services, a leading corporate proxy firm, recently proposed a new policy that clarifies its support for shareholder proposals requesting greater disclosure of a company’s natural gas hydraulic fracturing operations and efforts to manage and mitigate the potential impacts of those operations. As background for the new policy, ISS notes the increasing media and public policy attention on hydraulic fracturing operations, the high level of support hydraulic fracturing proposals received in 2010 and 2011 and ISS’s recommendation of votes in favor of each of those proposals.

The ISS release on its proposed policy, found here, specifically requests comments on the scope and reasonableness of the proposed policy, providing exploration and production and oilfield service companies an opportunity to shape the final policy.

For a more detailed discussion of this development, click here.

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill on October 17^th  intended to strengthen federal safety regulation of oil and gas pipelines.  The bill, known as the Pipeline Transportation Safety Improvement Act, includes the following provisions to address safety concerns:

• Requires strength-testing for previously untested natural gas transmission pipelines in high-population areas that operate at high pressure.
• Requires pipeline operators to verify their records to confirm the pipelines’ physical and operational characteristics and their established maximum allowable operating pressure;
• Authorizes additional pipeline inspectors and pipeline safety support employees through a phased-in increase over four years;
• Requires pipeline operators to report all maximum allowable operating pressure exceedances to the Department of Transportation;
• Increases the cap on civil penalties for violators of pipeline regulations and adds civil penalties for obstructing investigations;
• Requires installation of automatic or remote-control shut-off valves on new pipelines;
• Requires the Secretary to prescribe regulations that establish time limits on accident and leak notifications by pipeline operators to local and state government officials and emergency responders;
• Increases public availability of pipeline information, inspections and standards by requiring that this information be made available online;
• Sets more stringent standards on state “One-Call” systems by eliminating all exemptions given to local and state government agencies and their contractors on notifying “One-Call” centers before digging; and
• Permits expansion of excess flow valve requirements to include multi-family buildings and small commercial facilities.

Similar legislation is being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill’s passage follows the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration’s (PHMSA) August 25, 2011,  Federal Register publication of an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) (76 Fed. Reg. 53,086) regarding changes to the regulations for the safety of gas transmission pipelines (49 CFR Parts 190-199).  The ANPRM requests comments on 15 specific topic areas that fall into two broad categories: revising and strengthening integrity management (IM) requirements and  strengthening or expanding non-IM requirements.  (more…)