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Abandoned But Not Forgotten: Improperly Plugged And Orphaned Wells May Pose Serious Concerns For Shale Development, Bret Wells, Tracy Hester
Abandoned But Not Forgotten: Improperly Plugged And Orphaned Wells May Pose Serious Concerns For Shale Development, Bret Wells, Tracy Hester
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
This Article addresses the intersection of oil and gas law and environmental law on a topic that has profound significance for the nation’s oil industry and for the environment. In this regard, the Permian Basin is experiencing a renaissance that has fundamentally impacted oil production in the United States. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing now allow the industry to produce in the Permian Basin’s unconventional shale formations in ways that were unimaginable a decade ago. But, the hot shale plays within the Permian Basin exist above conventional fields that are littered with a century’s worth of abandoned wells. Fracturing new …
Grasping For Energy Democracy, Shelley Welton
Grasping For Energy Democracy, Shelley Welton
Michigan Law Review
Until recently, energy law has attracted relatively little citizen participation. Instead, Americans have preferred to leave matters of energy governance to expert bureaucrats. But the imperative to respond to climate change presents energy regulators with difficult choices over what our future energy sources should be, and how quickly we should transition to them—choices that are outside traditional regulatory expertise. For example, there are currently robust nationwide debates over what role new nuclear power plants and hydraulically fractured natural gas should play in our energy mix, and over how to maintain affordable energy for all while rewarding those who choose to …