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Mealey's Fracking

  • March 27, 2025

    Judge Vacates Alaska Fracking Lease Cancellation, Says Agency’s Error Is ‘Serious’

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A federal judge in Alaska on March 26 issued a judgment vacating the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI) decision to cancel federal fracking leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), enforcing an order in which the judge ruled that the “DOI’s error is serious:  DOI cancelled AIDEA’s leases without following the congressionally-mandated procedure for doing so.”

  • March 25, 2025

    Judge: Underpaid Royalties, Trespass Claims Survive In Mineral Rights Case

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — A federal judge in Ohio on March 24 partially dismissed a lawsuit by mineral rights holders against hydraulic fracturing operators in a dispute over the boundaries of the shale formation from which the fracking companies are extracting natural gas using a procedure called horizontal drilling, ruling that the defendants are liable for unpaid royalties and trespass.

  • March 25, 2025

    Judge Denies Bid To Remand Lease Approval Decision In Offshore Drilling Dispute

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California has denied Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum’s motion to remand to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) its decision that approved offshore oil and gas drilling leases, ruling that he was not convinced that the BSEE had established an intent to “seriously reconsider” its conclusion as part of ongoing litigation brought by environmental groups that oppose the lease approval.

  • March 19, 2025

    PTAB’s Rejection Of Alternate Claims In Fracking Patent Row Affirmed

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed findings of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that proposed alternate claims in two patents related to fracking were unpatentable as indefinite.

  • March 18, 2025

    Judge Stays Federal Fracking Case As Parties Invoke Trump’s Executive Orders

    CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A federal judge in Wyoming stayed consolidated litigation involving multiple parties who sued the U.S. Department of the Interior during the Biden administration despite opposition from environmental groups that contended that abeyance was not warranted because the case was “inches from the finish line.”

  • March 18, 2025

    Energy Company To Pay $8M, Perform Remediation For Post-Fracking CAA Violations

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — An energy company that was at the helm of an Ohio gas well during a post-fracking incident that resulted in a 20-day release of methane and other harmful substances will pay the United States $8 million in civil penalties and undergo a series of remediation efforts for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act pursuant to a consent decree signed by a federal judge in Ohio.

  • March 14, 2025

    Associations Urge High Court Reversal Of Ruling Finding Nondelegation Violation

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Telecom provider petitioners and broadband association petitioners filed reply briefs on March 13 in the U.S. Supreme Court, urging reversal of an en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that a subsidy program violates the “private nondelegation doctrine” after the high court granted two petitions for a writ of certiorari and consolidated cases concerning whether Congress violated the nondelegation doctrine by authorizing the Federal Communications Commission to delegate to a private entity.

  • March 10, 2025

    Company Seeks Exit From Shale Antitrust Case Citing ‘Implausibility’ Of Claims

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Expand Energy Corp., which is a defendant in antitrust multidistrict litigation related to shale oil, has filed a brief in support of a motion to dismiss in New Mexico federal court arguing that the consolidated class complaint should be dismissed because of the “implausibility of Plaintiffs’ allegations” as they relate to claims that Expand participated in a conspiracy with Wall Street investors, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and others to restrict the production of crude oil.

  • March 07, 2025

    Bill That Would Reverse Ban On Fracking In Maryland Awaits Committee’s Decision

    ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A bill that would reverse a ban on hydraulic fracturing in Maryland has been referred to a committee.

  • March 07, 2025

    Federal Agencies Deny They Violated Law In Approving Offshore Drilling

    LOS ANGELES — Federal agencies have filed an answer in California federal court denying all allegations brought against them by environmental groups who have sued seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on grounds that the agencies’ approval of ExxonMobil Corp.’s offshore oil and gas drilling lease violates multiple laws because the government’s determination that the lease was in the national interest failed to “failed to consider several highly relevant factors.”

  • March 06, 2025

    Groups Want In On Offshore Fracking Case Filed Against Biden Administration

    LAKE CHARLES, La. — Environmental groups have moved in Louisiana federal court for permission to intervene in a lawsuit brought by states and hydraulic fracturing industry groups that argue that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s orders that withdrew offshore waters from oil and gas leasing, which were issued just before he left office, are unlawful.

  • March 06, 2025

    9th Circuit Clerk Officially Dismisses Federal Fracking Lease Dispute In Alaska

    SAN FRANCISCO — The clerk of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has issued an order officially dismissing an appeal brought by hydraulic fracturing proponents against the Biden administration over the delay caused by a temporary halt of the fracking lease program in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska.  The fracking supporters had moved to voluntarily dismiss their appeal on grounds that the final record of decision (ROD) for ANWR’s Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Program issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) on Dec. 8 “completed DOI’s supplemental environmental review and expressly lifts the Moratorium for the oil and gas program rendering all claims in this appeal moot.”

  • March 06, 2025

    Fracking Operator Removes Fraud Case To Federal Court

    WHEELING, W.Va. — A hydraulic fracturing operator has removed to West Virginia federal court a case brought by a couple who contend that the company committed fraud when it withheld information about a surface use agreement that exists related to property that the couple bought. The surface use agreement stems from a consent decree with a fracking services company that calls for remediating parts of the property.

  • March 05, 2025

    North Dakota Says Biden Administration Energy Plan Violated Multiple Laws

    BISMARCK, N.D. — The state of North Dakota has sued the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) in North Dakota federal court arguing that the resource management plan, which is known as the Amended RMP, issued by the DOI during the Biden administration regarding plans to develop federal land for hydraulic fracturing “violates multiple federal statutes, is arbitrary and capricious, and should be vacated several times over.”

  • March 05, 2025

    Panel Rules Original Fracking Lease Remains Operative Despite Gaps In Activity

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — An appeals panel in Pennsylvania has affirmed a trial court’s ruling in a hydraulic fracturing drilling dispute, finding that the original lease related to land to be used for oil and gas exploration continued to be operative despite gaps in activity on the site in question over a series of years.  As a result, the rights claim asserted by a second drilling company related to the property did not apply, the panel said.

  • March 05, 2025

    Bill Would Require Disclosure Of Chemicals Used For Fracking In Ohio State Parks

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — A bill that would require hydraulic fracturing companies to disclose all of the chemical components they use in the process of drilling wells in state parks in Ohio has been referred to the Ohio House Committee on Natural Resources.

  • February 28, 2025

    Class Representative In Oil, Gas Royalty Settlement Opposes Attorney Fee Challenge

    DENVER — Parties objecting to the more than $17.3 million in attorney fees awarded as part of a $52 million oil and gas royalty settlement have failed to show that final approval was granted in error, the class representative, Chieftain Royalty Co., argues in an appellee brief filed in the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • February 25, 2025

    Hydrofracking Exclusion Does Not Bar Coverage For Suits Arising Out Of Explosion

    MIDLAND, Texas — A Texas federal judge entered judgment in favor of an insured in a dispute over reimbursement for underlying lawsuits arising out of an explosion at a saltwater facility after determining that the insurer failed to show that a jury verdict in favor of the insured was against the weight of the evidence and after determining that the policy’s hydrofracking exclusion does not bar coverage for the underlying suits.

  • February 21, 2025

    Group’s Letter Notifies Trump Of Potential Litigation Over Energy Emergency Order

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) on Feb. 20 sent a letter to President Donald J. Trump to “hereby put you on formal notice of your violations of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act in connection with actions taken pursuant to Executive Order 14156 entitled ‘Declaring a National Energy Emergency.’”

  • February 20, 2025

    Groups Say Trump Violated Law By Reopening Continental Shelf To Fracking

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Environmental advocacy groups on Feb. 19 sued President Donald J. Trump and his administration in Alaska federal court, arguing that the president’s executive order reopening areas of the outer continental shelf for hydraulic fracturing violates the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), which they say authorizes the president to withdraw unleased lands of the outer continental shelf from drilling but does not give the president the power to reopen areas that have been withdrawn.

  • February 19, 2025

    Trump Orders Creation Of National Energy Dominance Council

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald J. Trump has issued an executive order establishing a National Energy Dominance Council, which will be chaired by the secretary of the Interior and will advise the president on “how best to exercise his authority to produce more energy to make America energy dominant.”  The order also makes the secretary of the Interior a standing member of the National Security Council (NSC) for the first time.

  • February 18, 2025

    Federal Agency Seeks To Hold Methane Rule Case In Abeyance, Cites Policy Changes

    BISMARCK, N.D. — The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has filed a brief in North Dakota federal court arguing that it should hold in abeyance a lawsuit over the implementation of a rule promulgated by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) establishing standards for methane and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to the oil and gas sector, saying that “given the changes in the policy of the United States over the last few weeks, Defendants respectfully request that the Court defer judicial review in this case in the interest of justice and efficiency.”

  • February 14, 2025

    Government Asks Federal Judge To Deny Tribe Intervention In Utah Fracking Case

    SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. and Utah governments asked a federal judge in Utah to deny a motion filed by the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah & Ouray Reservation to intervene in a settled case involving Clean Air Act (CAA) violations at a fracking operator’s oil and gas production facilities on the tribe’s reservation, stating that the tribe makes the same argument it did during negotiations for a consent decree reached between the government and the operator and “does not meet the standard for intervention as of right or permissive intervention.”

  • February 11, 2025

    EPA Seeks Abeyance In Methane Tax Case To Sort Out Position In New Administration

    GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 10 filed a brief in Michigan federal court supporting his unopposed motion to hold in abeyance a case in which a business advocacy group and an oil and gas association challenge the constitutionality of the methane waste emissions charge levied under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The parties agree that, with the change in presidential administration, the EPA needs time to determine how it wishes to proceed in the case.

  • February 07, 2025

    North Dakota Seeks Ruling That Agencies Are Not Complying With Fracking Injunction

    BISMARCK, N.D. — The state of North Dakota has filed a brief in North Dakota federal court arguing that it should rule that the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and other agencies are not fully complying with a preliminary injunction that the court issued in 2023 that enjoins and restrains the DOI from implementing its moratorium on hydraulic fracturing lease sales in the state.