Energy Legal Blog

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) recently released its much anticipated Barnett Shale Formation Area Monitoring Projects survey.  The survey arrives amidst increasing press coverage of the opportunities and challenges of energy development in the nation’s shale regions.  Conducted over three months in the latter part of 2009, the survey focuses on characterizing air emissions associated with natural gas and oil production in the Barnett Shale.  Out of a total of 94 monitoring sites spread over 5,000 square miles and six counties, benzene levels at two sites were determined to exceed TCEQ’s short-term health-based comparison value, and at another 19 sites, TCEQ expressed concern about long-term cumulative exposure. (more…)

PR News announced that Bracewell & Giuliani’s Energy Legal Blog will be recognized as the best “Legal PR Blog” at its annual Corporate Social Responsibility & Legal Awards Luncheon on February 24, 2010 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. This award recognizes an outstanding and influential law-related weblog or online journal written by a representative of the organization with the goal of espousing the brand or a certain message and written with flair and personality.

“Managing a crisis and working with legal counsel are two areas of communication that will always be a part of a PR professional’s responsibilities,” notes Diane Schwartz, vice president of PR News. “The Legal PR Awards shines a light both on how law firms are communicating to their stakeholders and to how the PR industry is in the driver’s seat when a crisis hits.”

More information on the award program and this year’s winners is available at http://www.prnewsonline.com/awards/csr2009_event-finalists.html.

The so-called FRAC Act, legislation introduced in June of last year by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) in the House of Representatives and Senators Casey (D-PA) and Shumer (D-NY) in the Senate, received a fresh jolt of publicity this week when the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Environment convened a hearing on the recently announced merger between ExxonMobil and XTO Energy, Inc., one of the nation’s largest independent natural gas producers.  While nominally about the impact of the proposed merger on the natural gas market, the hearing, chaired by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), quickly focused in on hydraulic fracturing, the practice of injecting a high-pressure fluid mix of water, sand and a proprietary chemical mix into formations to release natural gas.  Hydraulic fracturing is specifically exempted from EPA regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.  The FRAC Act seeks to repeal this exemption and also to require operators to disclose the chemical constituents of the fracing fluid used at any given well. (more…)

EPA’s new GHG Inventory Rule is now final and will require prompt attention by many business sectors to help ensure compliance effective January 2010.  The rule establishes the most sweeping monitoring and reporting regime in memory and will serve as the basis for future policies and legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Companies and large institutions need to assess the rule applicability on a facility-by-facility basis and, if applicable, will need to integrate the new requirements into existing environmental management systems and budgets.

In a move that would have a wide effect on energy industry facilities, the EPA is said to be nearing a decision to propose limiting carbon dioxide emissions from stationary sources.  While EPA, under a memorandum issued under the Bush Administration in December 2008, has stated that carbon dioxide is not a regulated pollutant under the Clean Air Act (CAA), the pending proposal would reverse that position by creating a 25,000-ton emissions threshold, under which small emissions sources would be exempted, but major source emissions would be targeted. (more…)

The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) on June 10, 2009, issued its final order denying Kelson Transmission Company, LLC’s (Kelson) application for a certificate of convenience and necessity to construct and operate a 95-mile 345 Kilovolt open-access transmission line, for which Kelson initially sought certification in August of 2007.  The transmission line was planned to connect the 1,160 Megawatt Cottonwood electric generation facility located in the Southeast Reliability Council (SERC) to a substation in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) located on the CenterPoint Houston Electric Company, LLC transmission grid. (more…)