Update on New Mexico’s Methane Rules
EMNRD Finalized Regulations A few weeks ago, on May 25, 2021, the EMNRD published its new rules which limit most venting and flaring of natural gas as part of New Mexico’s mission to reduce methane emissions. The rules are now in effect…
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Recent Biden Administration Orders Affecting the Energy Industry
In his first week in office, President Biden and administration officials have issued various Executive Orders, memoranda and other agency directives reversing previous Trump Administration policies and/or establishing new policies for federal agencies, which some have characterized as a fossil fuel freeze….
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New Mexico’s Proposed Methane Rules
Executive Order 2019-003 One month after she assumed office on January 1, 2019, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham issued Executive Order 2019-003. The executive order finds that methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and that the oil and gas industry is…
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Are Your Overrides Really Pooled? REALLY?
The answer may depend on whether they were created by assignment or by reservation. An uncommitted overriding royalty interest in a unitized tract can gum the works. Its owner can claim her full undiluted percentage of production from a drillsite tract, forcing…
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Solenex, LLC v. Bernhardt, Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior: Cancellation of 1982 Oil and Gas Lease Upheld – Significant Cultural and Religious Lands of the Badger-Two Medicine Area in Montana
Introduction and Setting On June 16, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia wrote what could be the last chapter in a long-running dispute over an oil and gas lease issued by…
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A Cure for the Common Coronavirus – Keeping Your Lease Alive
Many oil and gas leases and contractual arrangements that made sense a few weeks ago make no sense at current oil prices. The law may, however, provide some relief for those stuck between low oil prices and the need to spend millions…
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Water Quality Control Commission Unanimously Approves Mine’s Proposed Regulatory Amendments to Surface Water Standards
On October 8, 2019, following a public hearing, the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) unanimously approved Peabody Natural Resources Company’s (Peabody) proposed amendments to the WQCC’s regulations governing standards for interstate and intrastate surface waters codified at N.M. Code R….
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Minerals for New Technologies and Low Carbon Economies
Co-Authored by Stuart Butzier – Modrall Sperling and Casper Herler – Borenius Attorneys, Helsinki, Finland Originally printed in the Newsletter of the International Bar Association’s Mining Law Committee…
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Court Affirms Contested Mine Permit Revision Changing Underground Uranium Mine from Standby to Active Status
In an appeal on the record taken by environmental groups pursuant to Rule 1-074 NMRA, the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe affirmed a significant revision of Mt. Taylor Mine’s existing mine permit originally issued decades ago under the 1993 New…
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New Mexico Produced Water Act
The New Mexico Legislature passed by an overwhelming majority, and Governor Lujan Grisham signed, the Produced Water Act, a bipartisan effort to encourage and facilitate the recycling and reuse of produced water by oil and gas producers and the conservation of fresh…
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