On March 22, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit continued its stay of EPA’s Regional Haze Rule. Texas et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 16-60118 (Mar. 22, 2017). The EPA rule would have required power plants in Texas and Oklahoma to install costly and potentially unnecessary upgrades to their generators. Last July, … Continue Reading
On Feb. 16 the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma against oil and gas drillers Chesapeake Operating LLC, Devon Energy Production Co. and New Dominion LLC.1 The Sierra Club claims that wastewater injection wells have contributed to cause increased earthquake activity in Oklahoma and alleges … Continue Reading
On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court struck down Houston’s air quality ordinances, ruling the city had overstepped its authority to police local polluters. In an 8-1 decision, the justices ruled that local ordinances requiring businesses to pay registration fees and allowing criminal sanctions for emissions violations were inconsistent with state law. The justices wrote in … Continue Reading
A bipartisan coalition of 29 states and state agencies filed an application with the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday to immediately halt the Obama Administration’s power plan while litigation continues in the D.C. Circuit Court. The application for immediate stay of the final EPA rule imposing far-reaching climate rules for power plants was filed by the … Continue Reading
On May 29, 2015, Gov. May Fallin of Oklahoma signed a bill that specifically prohibits cities or towns from banning oil and gas operations such as drilling, fracking, water disposal, recovery operations or pipeline infrastructure. A similar ban was signed into law ten days prior by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Fallin and supporters of the … Continue Reading
On May 19, 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a compromise bill addressing how state and local governments will share regulatory powers over urban drilling in Texas. The new legislation is the result of a statewide controversy created by the fracking ban enacted by the City of Denton last fall that put local and … Continue Reading
Bans on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) have arisen in a variety of places over recent months. Voters in Mendocino County and San Benito County, California, and Athens, Ohio, separately approved bans on fracking in the November elections. The New York State Governor and his Commissioners of Health and Environmental Conservation decided to ban fracking in New … Continue Reading
On November 10, 2014, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published two actions in the Federal Register that gave the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) sole authority over greenhouse-gas permitting in Texas: The Approval and Promulgation of Air Quality Implementation Plans; Texas; Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD); Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Tailoring Rule Revisions is … Continue Reading
