Energy/Environment

The oil and gas industry’s leading trade association accused the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday of skirting federal law by cutting short public consideration of new regulations meant to curb air pollution.

By limiting the comment period for the rule to just 23 days, the EPA is would be violating the Clean Air Act – in the name of clean air, the American Petroleum Institute (API) charged.

“EPA is cramming through unnecessary new regulations for gasoline that could drive up costs without providing significant environmental benefits,” said Bob Greco, director of API downstream group Director Bob Greco. “By limiting public comments, EPA is trying to skirt public participation and transparency in the rulemaking process.”

The bipartisan leadership of the House Natural Resources Committee wants the Interior Department to slow down development of revised rules unveiled last week to regulate oil and gas “fracking” on public lands.

The request to quadruple the public comment period from 30 days to 120 days underscores dissatisfaction with the proposal on the left and right, although not for the same reasons.

“We jointly believe that this [30-day] timeframe is unacceptable and not nearly long enough to allow the public to formulate in-depth and constructive comments on this 171 page, complicated rule,” Reps. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wrote in a new letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

Green groups have used “sue and settle” tactics to force more than 100 new rules from President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, according to a new Chamber of Commerce study released Monday.  

Oil-and-gas companies are concerned about reporting requirements for doing business with Burma now that the United States has established relations with the country.

Companies are lobbying the State Department on the reporting issue as the administration works to build diplomatic ties. President Obama on Monday hosted Burmese President Thein Sein at the White House in the latest sign of growing cooperation.

Oil-and gas-firms are interested in buying blocs in the resource-rich Bay of Bengal off of Burma’s western coast. Burma has offered up several plots to European Union bidders in recent auctions, and U.S. firms are also beginning to show interest.

Six Senate Democrats from Western states called Monday upon financial regulators to broaden forthcoming Dodd-Frank Act regulations to encompass a larger segment of energy markets.

In a letter to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Gary Gensler, the lawmakers say proposed Dodd-Frank rules designed to increase oversight of the swaps market are insufficient.

A proposed rule intended to cut pollution from automobiles is to be published Tuesday in the Federal Register, nearly two months after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) detailed the draft regulations. 

The Obama administration and Congress are weighing the safety of technological advances that seem ripped from science fiction.

Congressional Republicans charge the Environmental Protection Agency gives preference to environmental groups on information requests.

A federal judge in Arizona declined to reconsider an earlier ruling affirming the Interior Department’s authority to block new hard-rock mining on public lands.

U.S. District Judge David Campbell shut down a request for a rehearing by mining industry groups on Thursday. They’re protesting whether the federal government can unilaterally withdraw public lands from mining claims, according to The Associated Press.

At issue is an action by former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in which the ex-Interior chief banned mining on more than 1 million acres of uranium-rich land near the Grand Canyon.

The Obama administration is proposing major new regulations for hydraulic fracturing, prompting criticism from both industry and environmental groups, The Hill’s E2 Wire reports.

Green groups are especially worried that the revised rules will not go far enough to protect the environment, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulators adopted new regulations to increase oversight of the shadowy derivatives market, but they also softened a key part of the plan under industry pressure, writes The New York Times.

The new regulations span some 2,000 pages of rules required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, RegWatch reports.

But what’s not covered by the CFTC regulations reflects a victory for Wall Street lobbyists, according to Gawker.