General
News
BLM Extends Comment Period For Controversial Minn. Leases. According to E&E News, “The Bureau
of Land Management has extended the comment period on two controversial Minnesota mining leases after a server outage blocked the public from weighing in before the deadline expired yesterday. At issue is renewal of leases key to the Twin Metals project. Meanwhile,
the extension until Jan. 30 is unlikely to allay demands from congressional Democrats and environmentalists who argued that BLM should double the comment time. A BLM spokesperson blamed a ‘computer glitch’ for blocking access to the agency’s electronic planning
portal for submitting comments. ‘The technical difficulties affecting the site have been tracked back to a server outage,’ a BLM spokesperson said in an email today. ‘This extension should allow anyone who was unable to provide their comments do so through
January 30, 2019.’ The Trump administration has proposed renewing the two leases covering 4,865 acres of the Superior National Forest.” [E&E News,
1/23/19 (=)]
Restoring Heat In Frigid R.I. Could Take A Week Or More. According to E&E News, “National
Grid began the painstaking process yesterday of going door to door to restore natural gas service to about 7,000 Rhode Island customers who were without heat on a day when temperatures weren’t expected to rise above freezing. The effort in Newport and Middletown
could take a week or more, Tim Horan, president of the utility in Rhode Island, said at a morning news conference with Gov. Gina Raimondo (D). The pair held a second news conference in the evening, during which Horan suffered a medical emergency at the podium
and was taken to a hospital. National Grid spokesman Ted Kresse tweeted about two hours after the incident that Horan is doing well and should be released from the hospital. The utility suspended service Monday following a potentially dangerous loss of pressure
caused by a supplier’s faulty valve. In such cases, there can be explosions as pressure is restored, but National Grid shut down service out of an ‘abundance of caution.’ An overpressurization issue was blamed for multiple explosions, fires and one death in
the Lawrence, Mass., area in the fall. Horan said that the current situation was different, and that ‘the integrity of our system is safe and intact.’” [E&E News,
1/23/19 (=)]
Democrats Urge Interior To Halt Work During Shutdown. According to E&E News, “Democratic
senators called on the Trump administration today to halt work on offshore oil and gas development during the partial government shutdown. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and a group of colleagues questioned the legality of the Interior Department’s decision to call
federal employees back to work last week to advance the outer continental shelf program, also known as the five-year plan. The Cardin-led missive is the latest objection from Democratic lawmakers to Interior’s work on oil and gas drilling activities at a time
when 800,000 federal employees are furloughed. At noon on Capitol Hill tomorrow, Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee will convene a forum ‘on the Trump administration’s blatant favoritism toward the oil and gas industry during the government
shutdown.’ Witnesses include officials from the Wilderness Society, All Pueblo Council of Governors Natural Resources Committee and Center for American Progress, according to a notice.” [E&E News,
1/23/19 (=)]
BLM Extends Comment Period On Petroleum Reserve Plan. According to E&E News, “The Bureau
of Land Management has quietly extended the public comment period on its proposal to write a new integrated activity plan for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). In a notice posted online Tuesday, regulators said they will accept scoping comments
on the NPR-A plan until Jan. 30. The original cutoff date for comments was Jan. 22. The Interior Department made the change after weeks of being criticized by congressional Democrats and environmentalists for holding public meetings on the petroleum reserve
management plan during the ongoing partial government shutdown. BLM is rewriting the integrated activity plan for the petroleum reserve to consider allowing oil development on lands that are now off-limits to drilling and to study the need for special corridors
for roads and pipelines throughout undeveloped parts of the reserve. The current management plan for the 22.1-million-acre reserve prevents the government from selling oil and gas leases in almost half of the region. That plan was developed in 2013 under the
Obama administration. The NPR-A, located in northwestern Alaska, is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States.” [E&E News,
1/24/19 (=)]
Officials Release Data On 900K Oil And Gas Inspections. According to E&E News, “Texas energy
regulators yesterday rolled out a searchable database showing inspections of oil and gas wells throughout the state. The state Legislature has pushed the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the oil and gas industry rather than trains, to make its operations
more transparent. The commission staff finished the disclosure project months ahead of a deadline set when lawmakers reauthorized the agency in 2017. ‘It’s the same data our inspectors are looking at. I think this is a great step in transparency for the general
public,’ said Executive Director Wei Wang during a commission meeting yesterday. The database, known as the Online Inspection Lookup (OIL), shows the results of more than 900,000 inspections conducted since August 2015. The information will be updated weekly,
and users can also download the complete database.” [E&E News,
1/24/19 (=)]
States Seek Tight Legal Deadlines On EPA Landfill Methane Implementation. According to Inside
EPA, “Democratic states and environmental groups that are challenging EPA’s failure to implement an Obama-era rule to limit emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane at landfills are asking a federal district judge to impose tight timelines for the agency
to take a series of steps required by the rule. The state and environmentalist coalition outlines its requested timeline in a Jan. 22 motion for summary judgment in State of California, et al. v. EPA, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California,
in which they are challenging the Trump EPA’s lax implementation of the 2016 landfill methane standards. Specifically, they urge the court to order EPA to ‘review the four previously submitted state [compliance] plans’ within 30 days of the court’s order,
‘promulgate a federal plan within five months of the Court’s order,’ and ‘review any newly submitted state plans within [60] days of their submission.’ They are also urging the court to require EPA to submit status reports on its progress every 60 days, which
is ‘appropriate in light of EPA’s statutory and regulatory mandates, the nature of the problem the Emission Guidelines seek to address, the public interest, and additional circumstances.’” [Inside EPA,
1/23/19 (=)]
Water Needed For Hydraulic Fracking Has More Than Doubled. According to Axios, “The amount
of water needed for hydraulic fracturing operations has more than doubled in recent years and is slated to top 6 billion barrels in 2021, the consultancy Rystad Energy said in a note. Why it matters: It’s a metric of the massive scale of the U.S. oil boom
that has sent production to record levels. That’s largely thanks to growth in shale formations — most notably the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico — where hydrocarbons are pried loose using high-pressure injections of water, sand and chemicals. Show less
What’s next: A Rystad analyst said in the note that the industry will be able to get the water it needs as production grows and water demand soars with it. ‘This surge is driven by both increased activity and higher proppant intensity. But even with such steep
growth, market concerns about sourcing challenges and bottlenecks appear to be minimal,’ Rystad SVP Ryan Carbrey said in a statement.” [Axios,
1/23/19 (=)]
Chad Ellwood
Research Associate
202.448.2877 ext. 119