WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration wants to clamp down on shale gas drilling on public lands and set standards that proponents of tougher regulation hope will provide a blueprint for drilling oversight nationwide.

Industry sources said the Interior Department could propose a new rule on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as early as Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Energy Department on Wednesday announced a breakthrough in research into tapping a possibly vast fuel resource that could eventually bolster already massive natural gas reserves.

By injecting a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen into a methane hydrate formation on Alaska’s North Slope, the department was able to produce a steady flow of natural gas in the first field test of this method. The test was done from mid-February to about mid-April this year

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) – U.S. exports of liquefied
natural gas will not dramatically raise natural gas prices or
hurt the U.S. industrial sector, a new study said, bolstering
the case for supporters of sending U.S. gas abroad.

The Brookings Institution’s study said selling some of the
U.S. shale gas bounty to foreign consumers would have a “modest”
upward impact on domestic prices.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Sierra Club will try to use a 40-year-old legal settlement to scuttle plans by Dominion Resources Inc to convert a liquefied natural gas terminal in Maryland into a major export hub.

The environmental group, which opposes the export terminal as part of its wider fight against natural gas drilling from shale deposits, can weigh in on certain changes at the site of the proposed terminal under a 1972 legal agreement.

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – The Sierra Club plans to
use a decades-old legal settlement in its attempts to scuttle
plans by Dominion Resources Inc to convert a liquefied
natural gas terminal in Maryland into a major export hub.

The location of the planned Cove Point terminal, just south
of Calvert Cliffs State Park, is subject to a unique legal
agreement between Dominion, the Sierra Club and the Maryland
Conservation Council, which allows the environmental group to
weigh in on certain changes at the site, it said Thursday.

WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) – A top Obama administration
official on Tuesday accused lawmakers in the
Republican-controlled House of Representatives of living in a
world of “fairy tales and falsehoods” when it comes to energy.

In a stinging rebuke to the administration’s critics,
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar strongly defended his
department’s record on energy policy.

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) – A trading company ensnared
in the fallout from massive fraud uncovered in the U.S.
renewable fuel mandate has filed a lawsuit against the U.S.
government for its handling of the scandal.

OceanConnect, a firm that facilitates trades of renewable
energy credits, said in a complaint filed in federal court last
month that the Environmental Protection Agency’s response to the
fraud has undermined the government’s goal to encourage growth
and innovations in the biofuel industry.

WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) – Regions outside of the
United States hold 20 percent more untapped conventional natural
gas and about 13 percent less oil than previously estimated,
according to a U.S. government report released on Wed nesday.

In its latest world petroleum assessment, the U.S.
Geological Survey estimated that about 5,606 trillion cubic feet
of technically recoverable conventional natural gas is still
undiscovered around the world, excluding the United States.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. environment regulators will postpone implementation of standards requiring natural gas and oil drillers to cut emissions when they finalize the long-delayed regulations on Wednesday, an industry group and an environmental group said.

Drillers that use hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and other methods to extract natural gas and oil will not be required to add equipment to capture smog-forming emissions at wells until January 2015, the groups said.

April 16 (Reuters) – U.S. regulators on Monday approved the
country’s first liquefied natural gas export plant in nearly 50
years, which will open up cheap and abundant American supplies
to importers across the globe.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval
paves the way for construction to begin at Cheniere Energy’s
LNG plant at Sabine Pass, Louisiana, which will chill
natural gas to a liquid for shipping overseas by as early as
2015.