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Recently, when there was talk about Houston-based ATP Oil and Gas’ (ATP) legal problems, it was inevitably about its bankruptcy and its effort to bring the overriding royalty interests it had conveyed back into the bankrupt estate as debt instruments. That should change now that the Department of Justice (DOJ), acting jointly on behalf of…

As if crude producers and midstream transportation companies don’t already have enough problems trying to get crude oil from production fields to refineries thanks to inadequate pipeline infrastructure, tank car supply, rail safety concerns, and new regulations, they now also have to address a new, potentially market-busting lawsuit. In September, the Sierra Club, one of…

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s (BSEE’s) Investigations and Review Unit (IRU) substantially enhances the civil and criminal enforcement of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and the regulations issued thereunder.

Background

In 2010, in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Department of Interior renamed the Minerals Management Service (MMS)…

Prompted by concerns heightened by several recent high profile train derailments and accidents, coupled with the boom in the number of oil-carrying trains, the Obama administration, through the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), has proposed two new sets of rules aimed at addressing the perceived risks posed by the increase in rail transportation…

On May 30, 2014, in an unanimous decision in National Environmental Development Association’s Clean Air Project v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated EPA’s policy limiting the reach of the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Summit Petroleum Corp. v. EPA.

In Summit,…

On March 25, 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and the Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) jointly released a proposed rule purporting to clarify the scope of the “waters of the United States” protected under the Clean Water Act. The agencies claim that, as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Rapanos v. United …

On January 6, 2014, TCEQ requested comments on a proposal to revise the agency’s penalty policy. See Revised Penalty Policy (PDF). According to TCEQ, the proposed revision to its Policy simply incorporates recent statutory changes and documents existing enforcement practices.

Recent Statutory Changes

House Bill 2615 (PDF) (83rd Legislature, 2013) significantly increased the administrative…

By Jillian Marullo

House Bill 2767, which took effect on September 1, 2013, was enacted to encourage recycling of the wastewater produced in hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) and other oil and gas operations.

A hotly contested issue is the consumption of water by fracking activities. Fracking involves the injection of several millions of gallons of…