An interesting case involving a Texas oil and gas lease was decided recently by the Texas Court of Appeals in El Paso. The case was Community Bank of Raymore v. Chesapeake Exploration LLC and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. The issue was whether the lessee’s right to extract minerals found deeper than…
In October 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case of Chamber of Commerce et al v. EPA et al. The case will decide the question of “(w)hether the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] permissibly determined that its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting…
A study entitled “Impacts of Delaying IDC Deductibility” was published recently by Wood Mackenzie Consulting and was commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute (API) to estimate the effects of an Obama proposal to eliminate federal tax deduction of intangible drilling costs used by the oil and gas industry and to…
In Texas, and in much of the rest of the country, an oil and gas lease makes use of several different kinds of pipelines. When you are the recipient of a request for a pipeline easement, the kind of pipeline to be installed in that easement makes a night and…
In 2008, the Texas Supreme Court heard a class action case against Phillips Petroleum Co. The case was Bowden v. Phillips Petroleum Co., in which the Plaintiffs alleged that Phillips had underpaid their oil and gas royalties. The Supreme Court remanded part of the case back to the trial court.…
Recently the Supreme Court of Texas issued a decision that is important for Texas surface owners and mineral owners and the Texas oil and gas attorneys who represent them. The case is Homer Merriman v. XTO Energy Inc. I discussed the background of the Supreme Court decision previously, and you…
Texas royalty owners should get to know the website, FracFocus. This website provides a list of chemicals and other ingredients in fluids used by oil and gas well operators for hydraulic fracturing of wells both in Texas and across the country. The intent of the website is to allow the…
In April 2013. representatives in the US House of Representatives announced that bipartisan legislation would be introduced in 2014 to take out corn based ethanol requirements in the federal Renewable Fuel Standard The bill is called the Renewable Fuel Standard Reform Act. Those involved in the oil and gas industry…
The US House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee has held at least five meetings in the last two years on the problem of federal oil and gas regulations overlapping with existing state regulations. The Committee’s chairman, Representative Doc Hastings, had a common sense solution to this confusion: “There is a…
Due to increasingly onerous regulations, oil and gas industry associations have filed suit in federal court over the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) planned regulation of greenhouse gases from power plants and vehicles. The regulations come from a 2009 EPA finding that greenhouse gases pose a public health threat- the so-called…