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Energy & the Law

Monthly Archives: June 2012

Reserving a Mineral Interest Without Saying So

Posted in Land Titles

It ‘s tough to find an interesting picture of a title dispute, so here’s a musical interlude.  You never can tell how the court will construe a complicated property deed.  Can the seller of land retain half of the minerals he owns in the property if he doesn’t actually reserve anything? Yes, he can, says Hunsaker v. Brown Distributing, Ltd….. Continue Reading

The Lizard that (Almost) Shut Down the Permian Basin

Posted in Regulations

BY CHANCE DECKER The oil patch breathed a collective sigh of relief on June 13 when the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would withdraw its proposal to list the dunes sagebrush lizard (which inhabits parts of eastern New Mexico and Texas’s Permian Basin) as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (the ESA)…. Continue Reading

The EPA’s Flawed Energy Policy

Posted in Regulations

The predator returns. I don’t usually forward content created by others, and I try to avoid overtly political entries, but this one is from the June 14 Daily Policy Digest of the National Center for Policy Analysis.  It is worth reading if you pay attention to energy and environmental policy:  “For the last three years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has… Continue Reading

Be Careful With Electronically Stored Information

Posted in Litigation

BY CHANCE DECKER Kurt Mix’s nightmare probably won’t happen to you, but ignoring electronic discovery laws could cause you big problems in litigation. You might have heard of Mr. Mix, the former BP engineer now facing federal obstruction of justice charges for deleting text messages about the 2010 Gulf oil spill. His nightmare is playing out in… Continue Reading

In a Legacy Pollution Suit Plaintiff Gets the Jalopy, not the Mercedes

Posted in Pollution

You’re driving while texting your engineers about enhancing reservoir performance with LPG gel fracturing technology, and you rear-end a broken-down 15-year old Kia. The owner demands to be made whole. Is he entitled to the equivalent of another jalopy just as good as the one he had or, say, the brand-new Mercedes he says he needs? The Louisiana Supreme Court, in its latest… Continue Reading