Antitrust and Competition - The European Commission Approves Plan to Unwind a Completed Transaction in the Early Cancer Detection Sector - On 12 April 2024, the European Commission (Commission) approved the plan to unwind a...more
A stream of judicial decisions in the pipeline will have important implications for the energy industry. The three cases discussed below are among those that energy litigators and industry professionals are watching in 2024....more
Last November, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a regulatory preamble describing its plans for proposed standards to reduce methane emissions and other air pollutants from affected sources within the...more
United States Senate negotiators reached an agreement on July 27th on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (“IRA”). The 725-page bill would use fiscal year 2021 reconciliation instructions to raise revenue in order to fund...more
Alliteration aside, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have already raised the global temperature, and in turn, begun to wreak havoc on the world. Some of this damage—such as droughts, wildfires, and rising sea levels—are easily...more
The Global Methane Pledge (GMP) was one of the few headline commitments announced at COP26. The response to the GMP indicates that tackling methane emissions is now firmly on the agenda for the petroleum industry... ...more
Concurrent with commitments made during the twenty-sixth meeting of the United Nations’ COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, the Biden Administration released two significant policies aimed at analyzing and curtailing the...more
On June 30, 2021, President Biden signed into law a joint resolution of Congress repealing a Trump administration rule that removed methane as a pollutant regulated under the Clean Air Act in the oil and gas industry...more
As regulatory requirements and ESG reporting and transparency increase to address gas flaring, “clean fracs” could be one solution for upstream oil and gas companies towards an energy transition....more
Here’s why institutional investors, private equity firms and oil and gas companies facing ESG challenges should take a closer look into how they can take an active part in mitigating gas flaring....more
U.S. Shale Producers Race for Federal Permits Ahead of Presidential Election - "Federal permitting in the largest U.S. oilfield in the Permian Basin, located in Texas and New Mexico, is up 80 percent in about the last three...more
TSCA/FIFRA/TRI - EDF Reports That EPA Has “Muzzled” SACC: The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) published a September 16, 2019, blog item entitled “EPA’s latest move to deflect criticism of its TSCA risk evaluations: Muzzle...more
Recently, British Petroleum’s (BP) North Sea business completed its pilot project to remotely monitor methane emissions of its offshore assets by using an unmanned aerial system (UAS or drone). BP used a fixed-wing UAS with...more
This is the eighth issue of WilmerHale’s 10-in-10 Hot Topics in Energy Series. Over the course of 10 weeks, our attorneys will share insights on current and emerging issues affecting the US energy sector. Attorneys from...more
As Storm Looms, 4th Circuit Reverses Ruling Against Dominion on Coal Ash Pollution at Chesapeake Site - "Water pollution from a coal ash landfill and settling ponds at a closed power plant in Chesapeake is not a violation of...more
EPA took major steps on August 18, 2015 to curtail methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by simultaneously releasing four new proposed rules. These actions are part of the Obama Administration’s larger climate...more
Once again, shale oil and gas production dominated energy headlines in 2014, with a number of key economic, political, and legal developments making news across the country. Bolstered by technologies like hydraulic...more