EnergyRSS

  • February 13, 2009

    4th Circ. Blasts Away W.Va. Coal Mining Injunctions

    A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a West Virginia district court's ruling requiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct more thorough environmental scrutiny prior to issuing Clean Water Act permits for mountaintop coal mines.

  • February 12, 2009

    4th Circ. Reverses Rulings On National Gas Contracts

    An appeals court has rejected a bankruptcy court's conclusion that natural gas supply contracts between National Gas Distributors LLC and parties including Smithfield Packing Co. Inc. were not swap agreements, reversing a finding that BP Energy Co. called a threat to the integrity of the natural gas market.

  • February 12, 2009

    House Passes Water Conservation Bills

    The U.S. House of Representatives passed a pair of bills Wednesday aimed at conserving water in connection with both oil and natural gas drilling and normal household use.

  • February 12, 2009

    Bristol-Myers, IBM Agree To $14M Superfund Cleanup

    Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., General Electric Co., IBM Corp. and Pass & Seymour Inc. have agreed to spend an estimated $14 million cleaning up a former chemical waste recovery facility in upstate New York.

  • February 12, 2009

    Chevron Contests Ecuador Geologist’s $27B Appraisal

    Chevron Corp. has fired back in the long-standing environmental lawsuit against Ecuadorian state-owned oil company Petroecuador, claiming that a court-appointed geologist grossly miscalculated the damages allegedly caused by Chevron’s pollution in the Amazon to total $27 billion.

  • February 18, 2009

    Saul Ewing Picks Up Constellation Energy Counsel

    Saul Ewing LLP has added a veteran energy lawyer to its Baltimore office with the hire of longtime Constellation Energy Group Inc. counsel Dan R. Skowronski.

  • February 11, 2009

    Court Approves $3M Superfund Deal In Asarco Case

    A federal judge has approved a $3 million settlement between bankrupt mining company Asarco LLC and six other companies, including BP America Inc., over the cost of cleaning up a polluted site in Missouri.

  • February 12, 2009

    Miners Union Gets Partial Win Over MSHA Rule

    The United Mine Workers of America has partially won a challenge to a final rule issued by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit finding some of the provisions concerning mine rescue teams at odds with the underlying legislation.

  • February 11, 2009

    Last Case In Kazakh Oil Fight Forced Into Arbitration

    An independent oil and gas company that has pursued long-running bribery and corruption claims against several major international players in the oil industry was handed another defeat Monday when a federal judge ordered the company to pursue its claims against BG Group PLC in a Canadian arbitration proceeding.

  • February 11, 2009

    KBR, Halliburton Drop $579M To Settle Bribery Claims

    Halliburton Co. and former subsidiary KBR Inc. have agreed to pay $579 million to settle criminal and civil charges that they bribed Nigerian officials in order to obtain engineering, procurement and construction contracts worth about $6 billion.

  • February 11, 2009

    Kinder Morgan Unit, DOJ Settle Pipeline Spill Suit

    The Plantation Pipeline Co. has agreed to fork over $725,000 in order to settle allegations by federal prosecutors that the company violated the Clean Water Act by discharging thousands of gallons of oil into federal waters in three states.

  • February 11, 2009

    2 Oil Refiners Pledge $141M In CAA Fixes

    Under settlements with federal regulators, two petroleum refiners have agreed to spend more than $141 million to rein in air pollution and resolve allegations that three refineries in Kansas and Wyoming violate the Clean Air Act.

  • February 10, 2009

    Twin City Fights $1M Claim Over Key Legal Costs

    Twin City Fire Insurance Co. has asked a court to rule that it has no duty to pay Key Energy Services Inc. nearly $1 million to cover the costs of securities and derivatives class action settlements because the oil services company did not exhaust lower levels of excess directors and officers liability coverage.

  • February 10, 2009

    Salazar Delays 5-Year Plan For Offshore Drilling

    Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has delayed a U.S. Department of the Interior five-year plan for offshore oil and gas development in order to examine its environmental impacts, in his latest rebuke of one of the Bush administration's "midnight regulations."

  • February 10, 2009

    CFTC Member Calls For Criminal Authority

    As public clamor mounts for criminal prosecutions of financial fraud, a member of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is pushing Congress to give the CFTC the authority to pursue criminal prosecutions.

  • February 9, 2009

    Chevron Demands $500K From Nigerian Villagers

    Fresh off a win in the rights abuses case involving Nigerian protesters, Chevron Corp. is demanding that the villagers who brought suit fork over almost $500,000 in reimbursements, in a move that some opponents have labeled heartless.

  • April 30, 2009

    Senate Panel Passes Transmission Bill Amendment

    A Senate panel has reportedly voted to prevent the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from allocating the costs of new transmission lines for green energy unless consumers in a region will receive “measurable economic and reliability benefits.”

  • February 9, 2009

    TVA Spill Violates Clean Water Act: EPA

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has notified the Tennessee Valley Authority that a Dec. 22 retention pond breach at its Kingston Fossil Plant that unleashed an avalanche of coal-ash sludge into a nearby river constitutes a violation of the Clean Water Act.

  • February 10, 2009

    Consortium Finalizes $7.4B Purchase Of Puget Energy

    A private group of Australian and Canadian investors has completed its $7.4 billion acquisition of Puget Energy Inc., Washington state's largest electric and natural gas utility, less than two months after receiving final approval for the merger from state energy regulators.

  • February 9, 2009

    Vt. High Court Upholds Permitting Of Wind Turbine

    The Vermont Supreme Court has upheld a ruling allowing the permitting of a 16-turbine wind project near the town of Sheffield despite objections from a citizens' group that the project would tarnish the landscape and hurt tourism.