Newsletter RSS

Mealey's Fracking

  • December 20, 2024

    Drilling Company Says Some Of Mineral Rights Plaintiffs’ Claims Are Not Viable

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — A drilling company on Dec. 19 filed a reply brief in Ohio federal court contending that plaintiffs suing it in a complex mineral rights lawsuit have no viable claims for unjust enrichment and arguing that the plaintiffs have waived their trespass claims.

  • December 18, 2024

    Royalty Payment Case Against Fracking Companies Is Valid, Plaintiffs Argue

    WHEELING, W.Va. — The plaintiffs who sued Southwestern Energy Co. and Southwestern Production Co. LLC (collectively, Southwestern) alleging that they paid diminished royalties regarding hydraulic fracturing mineral rights filed a brief in West Virginia federal court arguing that it should deny the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on grounds the defendants “knew and anticipated the impact on Plaintiff’s well but went forward with drilling,” saying the facts of the case “fit squarely within the negligence theory of liability under Atkinson v. Virginia.”

  • December 06, 2024

    Company: Equipment Suppliers Breached Contract By Selling Faulty Fracking Tools

    DENVER — An energy company has filed an amended complaint in Colorado federal court contending that a hydraulic fracturing equipment supplier is liable for damages for breach of contract related to equipment that malfunctioned during fracking operations at one of the company’s oil wells.

  • December 05, 2024

    Fracking Company Insists Discovery Order Should Be Stayed In Mineral Rights Case

    CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — A hydraulic fracturing operator filed a reply brief in West Virginia federal court on Dec. 4 contending that it should grant the company’s motion for a stay of an opinion and order that the court issued granting a motion to compel the production of documents sought by the plaintiffs in a long-running mineral rights class action.  The fracking operator argues that the plaintiffs are not entitled to such information prior to certification of a class and that the order poses a greater hardship to the company than it does to the plaintiffs.

  • December 05, 2024

    California Oil Well Bill Is An ‘Illegal Attempt’ To Stop Business, Company Says

    LOS ANGELES — An energy company has sued the state of California in state court seeking a writ of mandate for declaratory and injunctive relief and inverse condemnation related to a state law that calls for the identification and plugging of low-production oil wells, which the company says “represents an illegal attempt to coerce an individual company to stop operation of its legal business.”

  • December 10, 2024

    Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Proper Scope Of NEPA In Fracking Railway Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Attorneys presented oral arguments on Dec. 10 before the U.S. Supreme Court debating whether the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires a federal agency to study the environmental consequences of projects beyond the proximate effects caused by the specific action over which that agency has regulatory authority, specifically in relation to a case in which petitioners seek reversal of a ruling finding that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) failed to adequately examine the risk of wildfires and the impact on groundwater posed by the construction of a rail line in Utah that would carry crude oil from hydraulic fracturing operations at the shale formation in the Uinta Basin (Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, et al. v. Eagle County, Colo., et al., No. 23-975, U.S. Sup.).

  • December 05, 2024

    Pennsylvania Court Affirms Sanctions In Fracking Case For ‘Egregious Conduct’

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — In an unreported opinion, a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court panel has ruled that “although unprecedented, there is more than enough evidence of egregious conduct” establishing “bad faith, harassment, unwarranted delaying tactics, and outright lying” by the attorney representing landowners in a hydraulic fracturing dispute such that the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board’s (EHB) award of sanctions against the attorney and the landowners jointly was warranted.

  • December 04, 2024

    Magistrate Judge Approves $65M Deal In Securities Case Against Fracking Operator

    HOUSTON — A federal magistrate judge in Texas issued a final judgment and order of dismissal after approving a $65 million settlement in a securities fraud lawsuit investors brought against a hydraulic fracturing operator.

  • December 04, 2024

    Company Seeks Contempt Ruling For Residents In Fracking Waste Pollution Case

    PITTSBURGH — A hydraulic fracturing operator on Dec. 3 filed a reply brief in Pennsylvania federal court arguing that a putative class of residents who argue that their water supply has been contaminated by fracking waste fluid “persist in their effort to conceal” data related to the report of one of their experts.  The fracking operator says the residents should produce the complete data or be prevented from using the expert that relies on that data.

  • December 04, 2024

    North Dakota Refutes Tribes’ Claim To Mineral Rights In Missouri Riverbed

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The state of North Dakota has filed a brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia arguing that there is “no clear evidence” of congressional intent to confer Native American tribes with ownership of the disputed Missouri Riverbed and underlying mineral interests, and it says the lack of evidence “becomes even more clear when the relevant treaties, documents, and relationships are understood in their historical context.”

  • November 27, 2024

    States, Energy Companies Tell D.C. Circuit EPA Methane Rule Violates Federal Law

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Multiple states have filed a brief in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals arguing that the “presumptive standards” for existing sources listed in the 2024 methane rule instituted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violate the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by “diminishing the States’ statutory authority” to create their own plans that consider their specific circumstances, including “the remaining useful life” of chemical facilities within their borders.  The same day, members of the energy sector also filed a brief contending that the EPA’s standard is “unlawful and arbitrary and capricious.”

  • November 26, 2024

    High Court To Review Delegated Oversight Of Telecommunications Subsidies

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has 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 a subsidy program to a private entity, both arising out of the en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that the program violates the “private nondelegation doctrine.”

  • November 22, 2024

    COMMENTARY: 2024 Key Insurance Decisions, Trends & Developments & A Look Ahead To 2025

    By Scott M. Seaman, Pedro E. Hernandez and Lisa M. Roccanova

  • November 22, 2024

    Delay Over Alaska Fracking Leases Was ‘Reasonable,’ Biden Administration Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Biden administration has filed a response brief in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals arguing that the delay caused by a temporary halt of the hydraulic fracturing lease program in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska was “reasonable and necessary to ensure the program’s compliance with” the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), adding that Congress imposed no specific deadlines for lease sales in the Tax Act.

  • November 22, 2024

    Standing Debated At Length As Judges Hear Arguments On Fracking Permit Challenge

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Attorneys for environmental groups, the U.S. government and hydraulic fracturing operators on Nov. 21 debated before the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals the issue of whether the groups had standing to challenge federal fracking permits in New Mexico’s Permian Basin and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, with the groups insisting that they have alleged plausible injury, and the government and the fracking proponents maintaining that Congress has granted federal agencies authority to grant applications for permits to drill (APDs).

  • November 20, 2024

    Fracking Railway Petitioner, Government Say Lower Court Ruling Must Be Reversed

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The petitioners who seek reversal of a lower court ruling that held that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) failed to adequately examine the risk of wildfires and the impact on groundwater posed by the construction of a proposed rail line in Utah that would carry products related to hydraulic fracturing to and from the shale formation in the Uinta Basin have filed a reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that reversal of the lower court’s decision is required because that ruling “went well beyond the project’s legal relevant effects and demanded consideration of non-proximate and non-environmental effects.”  The same day, the U.S. government filed a reply brief that supports the petitioners but differs slightly in that it argues that the petitioners “go too far to the extent they ask this Court to impose the same standard of proximate cause that applies in tort suits.”

  • November 19, 2024

    Texas Panel Dismisses Oil Rig Injury Case For Lack Of Jurisdiction

    HOUSTON — A Texas appellate panel has ruled that a trial court could not exercise general jurisdiction over the case of a man who sued an oil rig operator for personal injuries, saying the companies in question were not “essentially at home” in Texas and, therefore, the case is dismissed.

  • November 18, 2024

    Parties Reach $6.5M Deal To Plug Abandoned Wells, Settle Protracted Dispute

    WHEELING, W.Va. — A federal judge in West Virginia has granted preliminary approval to a $6.5 million class settlement in a protracted dispute over abandoned wells between hydraulic fracturing operators and landowners, with the deal calling for the fracking defendants to plug 2,600 wells across West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Tennessee through the end of 2034.

  • November 13, 2024

    Under Proposed Rule, EPA Would Collect Annual Charge On Methane Emissions

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Nov. 12 announced that it has issued a proposed final rule promulgating a regulation to facilitate compliance with the requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA), also known as the Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP), under which the EPA will collect an annual charge on methane emissions that exceed waste emissions thresholds specified by Congress.

  • November 12, 2024

    U.S. High Court Grants Motion To Divide Argument In Fracking Railway Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 12 granted the federal government’s motion for divided argument in a case in which petitioners seek reversal of a lower court ruling that held that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) failed to adequately examine the risk of wildfires and the impact on groundwater posed by the construction of a proposed rail line in Utah that would carry products related to hydraulic fracturing to and from the shale formation in the Uinta Basin. However, the Supreme Court denied a motion for divided argument filed by the respondent. The Court did not elaborate on its decision.

  • November 08, 2024

    Biden Administration Opposes Bid To Stay Alaska Coastal Plain Fracking Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Biden administration on Nov. 7 filed a brief in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opposing a motion by drilling proponents in a long-running, complex dispute over hydraulic fracturing in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska who want to hold their own appeal in abeyance.  The administration argues that “it makes little sense to hold this appeal in abeyance when its resolution may help resolve issues that could arise in subsequent litigation.”

  • November 08, 2024

    Panel: Verdict For Fracking In Well Damage Case Stands; Injunction Not Warranted

    WOODSFIELD, Ohio — An appellate panel in Ohio has affirmed a jury verdict in favor of a hydraulic fracturing company for harm to its mineral rights interests caused by a salt brine well operator, ruling that the evidence showed that the well operator knew that its activity could cause the injury in question.  The panel also upheld the trial court’s decision not to award punitive damages or issue a permanent injunction, finding that the instruction on malice was properly given to the jury.

  • November 07, 2024

    Report: 400,000 Acres To Be Available For Fracking In Alaska’s Coastal Plain

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) on Nov. 6 released the final supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) for hydraulic fracturing in the Coastal Plain of Alaska, which calls for 400,000 acres, the minimum required under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017(Tax Act), to be offered for fracking in the northwest portion of the Coastal Plain.

  • November 07, 2024

    Company Asserts Lease Rights To Access Property For Oil And Gas Operations

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — An energy company sued a revocable trust in Ohio federal court on Nov. 7 arguing that it has the right to access a property held by the trust for the construction and installation of a gathering pipeline under an oil and gas lease.

  • November 07, 2024

    3rd Circuit: Fracking Royalties Were Not Underpaid Based On Lease Interpretation

    PHILADELPHIA — A panel of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling in a hydraulic fracturing royalty dispute, concluding that royalties were not underpaid based on the proper interpretation of the lease agreements involved.