AAPG GEO-DC Blog

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOE; formerly Minerals Management Service) is accepting comments through Wednesday, June 30 on the scope of the environmental impact statement (EIS) it is planning for the proposed 2012-2017 Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) 5-year leasing program.

Events in the Gulf of Mexico since the unveiling of the proposed program on March 31 and the federal response have disrupted OCS exploration and production activities.

The current 6 month moratorium in place for deepwater wells, the reorganization of the MMS, and the environmental and economic damage sustained along the Gulf coast are a source of considerable uncertainty in the region, and across the country.

It remains to …

According to a brief story posted by The Hill yesterday, House Ways and Means Chair Sander Levin (D-Mich.) plans to introduce legislation next week that provides tax relief to renewable energy producers to stimulate job creation.

Levin held a hearing in April entitled, Energy Tax Incentives Driving the Green Energy Economy.

The purpose of the hearing was to “examine the effectiveness of current energy tax policy and identify additional steps that the Committee can take to ensure continued job growth in this area while at the same time advancing national energy policy focus on a discussion of current and proposed energy tax incentives.”

The committee hosted three panels of witnesses. The first panel consisted …

At the National Press Club today, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative (MITEI) released an interim report on the future of natural gas.

The study group, chaired by Prof. Ernest Moniz, MITEI director and former under secretary of energy, evaluated the role of natural gas in a carbon-constrained future.

The conclusions are that:

• Abundant global natural gas resources imply greatly expanded natural gas use, with especially large growth in electricity generation.
• Natural gas will assume an increasing share of the U.S. energy mix over the next several decades, with the large unconventional resource playing a key role.
• The share of natural gas in the energy mix is likely to be even larger in the near to intermediate term in response …
  

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman affirmed his ruling today to lift the moratorium that the Department of Interior had placed on all deepwater drilling activity, pending the findings of a national commission.

Feldman, on Tuesday, granted a preliminary injunction against the federal government’s imposition of a moratorium on deepwater drilling.  The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

The White House immediately announced its intent to appeal the ruling.

But the judge was not swayed, affirming his Tuesday decision, and writing in today’s ruling, “The defendants’ motion to stay pending appeal is hereby denied for the same reasons given in …