Proof in Trial: Appellate Edition: Stand Up for California et al. v. U.S. Department of the Interior et al.
In a significant move to accelerate domestic energy development, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has announced emergency permitting procedures that will dramatically compress environmental review timelines. Under...more
A series of recent actions undertaken by President Biden, near the end of his term, and President Trump, in the early days of his presidency, have called into question a key issue under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act...more
Establishes the National Energy Dominance Council with the Secretary of the Interior, and Secretary of Energy and Chair and Vice Chair. The Order assigns the council to advice the President on various energy related matters,...more
On the President’s first day in office, January 20, the White House released Executive Order 14153, titled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” (the “Alaska EO”). The Alaska EO states that: The State of...more
On January 20, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” (the “Alaska EO”). The order reverses decisions by the Biden administration to limit energy resource...more
On President Trump’s first and second days in office, the new administration released a flurry of executive actions, in the form of both memorandums and executive orders, focused on the energy industry:...more
The U.S. Department of the Interior has long wrestled with how to manage the risk associated with the costly decommissioning of offshore oil wells in federal waters. In recent years, the Department has released, revised, and...more
George Felcyn, senior director of government affairs in Bracewell’s Policy Resolution Group, discusses the future of the wind industry under a second Trump administration....more
The permitting process has been identified by numerous commentators as a major cause of delays in the development of energy, infrastructure, and mining projects in the United States. ...more
The U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) released a final rule that will protect millions of acres of Alaskan wildness from the development of oil, gas and minerals. Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which...more
For a decade, the U.S. Department of the Interior has wrestled with financial assurance (or bonding) requirements for offshore oil and gas companies. Over the last 10 years, the Interior Department has released – and later...more
The Biden administration issued a final rule this Wednesday aimed at curbing methane leaks from oil and gas drilling on federal and tribal lands. Adoption of the rule is its latest action to crack down on emissions of...more
After months of delay, the U.S. Department of the Interior auctioned off 1.7 million acres for offshore oil and gas leases during Lease Sale 261 on Dec. 20, 2023. (See Holland & Knight's previous alert, "Interior Department...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Nov. 14, 2023, dismissed claims brought by environmental groups challenging offshore oil and gas Lease Sale 261. The court ordered that the sale take place within 37 days of...more
The U.S. Department of the Interior on Sept. 29, 2023, announced its long-awaited Five-Year Offshore Leasing Plan as required by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (the Plan)....more
The United States Department of the Interior published the final well control rule on Aug. 22 from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). The rule clarifies blowout preventer (BOP) system regulations and...more
Last year, the Department of Interior (DOI) updated its estimate of the number of orphaned or abandoned wells across the United States, documenting 130,000—more than double its previous estimate. The bipartisan 2021...more
In a decision that once again evidences the Fifth Circuit’s strong stance on the finality of asset sales in bankruptcy absent a stay of the applicable order, on March 8, 2023 the United States District Court for the Southern...more
Overview - On November 28, the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed methane rule. This action furthers the Biden-Harris administration’s whole-of-government response to...more
The Inflation Reduction Act (the Act), which passed the U.S. Senate on Aug. 7, 2022, requires that previously announced offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska be held during the next two years....more
On July 1, 2022,1 the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) released its Proposed Program for the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (“DOI”) National Outer Continental Shelf (“OCS”) Oil and Gas Leasing Program (“National...more
The U.S. Department of the Interior on July 1, 2022, released its long-awaited update on the next Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) five-year proposed offshore drilling program (Program), a day after the previous program expired....more
The United States Department of Interior (“DOI”) released on April 12th guidance (“Guidance”) to the states for application of the first $775 million in initial grant funding for plugging orphaned oil and gas wells. The...more
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has announced the first onshore lease sale for drilling on federal lands since President Joe Biden took office, but the new leases will have different terms than all prior lease...more
The United States Department of Interior (“DOI”) announced that $1.15 billion is available to the states from the recently enacted Infrastructure Law for remediating orphaned oil and gas wells. The DOI announcement...more