Our oil and gas experience includes:

• Successfully defending a natural gas company in a case of first impression regarding federal environmental citizen suit allegations that oil and gas exploration can cause earthquakes.
• Representing the oil and gas and coal industries in federal district court cases challenging the Department of the Interior’s recently-adopted regulations altering the valuation standards for paying royalties on federal oil and gas and federal and Indian coal production, in which the lawsuits sought to preserve central, long-standing principles of royalty valuation and fairness.
• Serving as legal and policy counsel to a major transportation association in its development, execution, and publication of a nationally-recognized study regarding the application of leak detection technologies to buried, pressurized pipelines.
• Working with engineering and operations experts to prepare a fuel facility operation and maintenance guidance manual focusing on environmental and safety aspects of fuel facility management that became the industry standard for applicable facilities.
• Working with a coal bed methane driller to successfully obtain one of the first NPDES salinity offset permits in Colorado and to develop alternative salinity offset proposals for consideration;
• Helping a major refining company develop a plan to implement obligations it had accepted as part of a criminal consent decree that allowed the facility to complete its obligations and go off probation several years early.
• Advising an exploration and production company in the acquisition of mineral interests in a productive well field and in the expedited permitting of drilling operations for over 40 sites simultaneously.
• Assisting several natural gas exploration and processing operations in navigating EPA’s expansive “site aggregation” approach for air regulation.
• Assisting a gas producer on public lands with obtaining approval of an Environmental Impact Statement for a major gas development project.
• Serving as legal and policy counsel to a major oil and gas services firm on hydraulic fracturing policy and regulatory initiatives.
• Advising a major oil and gas services firm on the successful deployment of new drilling technology worldwide.
• Defending royalty collection actions brought by the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) against producers of oil and gas resources on federal and tribal lands.
• Advising a major industry organization on Bureau of Land Management (BLM), federal offshore, and ONRR regulatory matters.
• Advised oil and gas companies on National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), and Eagle Act issues relating to pipeline and gas infrastructure construction.
• Representing members of the oil and gas industry in assisting the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to develop a General Conservation Plan and incidental take permits for industry work affecting an endangered species, and advising on associated NEPA issues.
• Counseling a coalition of upstream and midstream companies in the development of a multi-state Habitat Conservation Plan to obtain incidental take permits covering several bat species.
• Representing upstream and midstream companies in evaluating Clean Water Act jurisdictional and permitting impacts on waters and wetlands.