energy law

The New York Times' Jack Healy reports about how Longmont, Colorado, and several other local governments that passed bans on fracking for natural gas are being sued: "state officials, energy companies and industry groups are taking Longmont and other municipalities to court, forcing local governments into what critics say are expensive, long-shot efforts to defend the measures." The bans in Longmont, Lafayette and in Fort Collins, Colorado, were overturned in court. Lafayette City Council even voted against appealing a legal judgment against its restriction on oil and gas development out of concern with the legal costs.

The Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral arguments today over a constitutional challenge to the Keystone XL pipeline, the Journal Star reports.

The issues in the case include:

* whether a 2012 statute giving the governor authority to approve the route can be upheld; 

* whether three landowners have standing to challenge the law because their properties are near or would have been near the path of the pipeline route;

* whether the pipeline is a common carrier that only the state legislature and the Nebraska Public Service Commission are allowed to regulate and whether the legislation violated the state constitution "by allowing TransCanada, the company developing the Keystone XL pipeline, to bypass the state’s Public Service Commission and have its route reviewed by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and approved by Gov. Dave Heineman," the Journal Star also reports.

The Wyoming Supreme Court heard arguments this week on whether "a trade secrets exemption in the state's open records law shields many of the chemicals the petroleum industry uses during hydraulic fracturing from public disclosure," according to the Associated Press. Companies do have to disclose the makeup of the chemical products to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, but environmentalists want the commission to disclose that information to the public.