Repository for Oil and Gas Energy Research (ROGER)

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Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction can augment energy supplies in countries with viable gas resources, but it risks damaging water resources. Water supply problems for fracking can also limit UOG extraction, especially in water-stressed regions. Regulations are one of the main tools used to minimize UOG extraction impacts on water resources. Many states in the US and Canada have extensive regulations to protect water resources during UOG extraction but they are often ineffective, either because they were poorly drafted or because they are not properly enforced. South Africa is a water-scarce, groundwater-dependent country that is considering UOG extraction in the future. South African groundwater experts were surveyed on what regulations are needed to protect groundwater resources and how to enforce them. This study recommends specific UOG extraction regulations to protect groundwater resources, which are not only relevant to South Africa, but also to other countries that extract UOG resources.

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The UK government's policy of support for shale gas extraction ended in November 2019 with the imposition of a moratorium on fracking (hydraulic fracturing) in England, and an admission that the policies to manage induced seismicity were insufficient. However, ambiguities remain regarding its scope, despite attempts at clarification. The concept of fracking to improve hydrocarbon production has evolved from defining a specific engineering process, using high volumes of water, to encompass other ‘unconventional’ methods to achieve the same end. We resolve the various definitions in a scientific, technical, regulatory and legislative context, robustly define unconventional extraction methods (circumventing the need to identify and quantify the various technologies available), and advocate the precautionary principle in drafting and interpreting regulations. Policy should be driven by the engineering of the bulk physical characteristics of the target rock, rather than by the current definitions based on injected fluid volume. To meet climate change concerns, the moratorium should be converted into a ban. In the interim, we argue that, in order to comply with the government's policy of ensuring safe and sustainable operations, the moratorium should be extended to all well stimulation treatments for unconventional hydrocarbon extraction, including acid stimulation.

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In the last decade, unconventional oil and gas (UOG) has changed the world’s energy landscapes, often outpacing governments’ efforts to regulate it. Yet, few studies focus on the processes of governance, particularly on questions of procedural equity. Here we examine the process of the 2014 Colorado Oil and Gas Task Force (TF), which was established to address regulatory conflicts over drilling, particularly along the Northern Colorado Front Range. The TF aimed to create a level playing field for influencing decision-making. However, we find that several power mechanisms were deployed by the state and the industry, ensuring that those with the least opportunity to meaningfully influence outcomes were also most likely to be impacted by the TF’s regulatory recommendations had the least opportunity to meaningfully influence the process and its outcomes. Thus we advance existing literature on procedural injustice by focusing on the underlying power mechanisms that help structure procedural injustice in these processes.

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In 2012 Pennsylvania's legislature increased the unconventional natural gas (UNG) well-to-building setback requirement from 200 ft to 500 ft through Act 13. To evaluate this policy, we identified all setback incident locations where a UNG well was within 500 ft of a building both before and after the implementation of Act 13. Using an interrupted time series design, we found that Act 13 did not significantly alter how wells were sited in relation to nearby buildings. Of the 1042 wells that contained a building within 500 ft – equating to ~10.1% of UNG wells (n = 11,148) and ~14.7% well pads (n = 479) – a total of 371 well setback incidents occurred after Act 13, likely due from the existing well pad exemption (35%) and a combination of landowner consent and regulatory variances rather than encroaching building construction. Overall, our study suggests that exemptions are an important and underappreciated aspect of oil and gas well setback rulemaking and highlights the relevance of other health-protective regulatory tools often promulgated alongside setbacks. New or amended setback regulations should revisit exemption procedures and where warranted, impose additional mitigation measures to ensure setback regulations provide adequate protections for health and safety as intended.

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Over the past decade, the shale gas boom has led to increasing public concerns regarding communities' exposure to air pollutants from shale gas development resulting in concentrations higher than the EPA's National Ambient Air Quality Standards. This study investigates the sufficiency of current policy in Pennsylvania to protect people from exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions from such development. We used a Gaussian plume model to simulate PM2.5 concentrations over the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania, and using census block data, we estimated the potential number of people who experienced exceedance of the PM2.5 standard between 2005 and 2017. Results demonstrate that these emissions could increase the number of exceedances by more than 36,000 persons in a single year which is almost 1% of the Marcellus shale regional population in Pennsylvania. This number has largely been proportional to the overall number of developed wells, but development histories show that similar levels of development could occur with reduced population exposure. Setback policy is shown to be an effective method to reduce exposure exceedances, but results suggest that it should be revised based on the number of wells per wellpad as well as the local conditions to further limit air quality impacts.

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The hydraulic fracturing (fracking) boom has outpaced both our understanding of its potential impacts on human health and the environment, as well as the legal and regulatory frameworks in place to govern it. We conducted interviews in Pennsylvania with individuals living in communities affected by fracking to examine how residents perceive the laws and regulations that are in place to protect them from its risks. We found that residents felt that they lacked access to sufficiently comprehensive and comprehensible information about the potential risks that fracking poses. We then drew from scholarship on the use of information disclosure as a regulatory tool to discuss the need for increased information transparency in the fracking context, and proposed several policy interventions that could ease the information asymmetry experienced by residents in these communities.

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Policies surrounding energy development are frequently implemented in response to known or perceived problems. South Africa is in a unique position to develop prospective policies that build on knowledge gained from elsewhere. This paper provides a prospective analysis of hydrogeological risk pathways and vulnerability attributes in advance of anticipated shale gas operations in the Karoo Basin of South Africa. The ‘hazard-pathways-receptors’ approach is applied to define the hydrogeologic system in the context of potential sources of water resource contamination. This case study focuses on two critical hydrogeological risk pathways: regional groundwater flow and discrete structural features. Depending on the targeted area (hydro-litho-structural domain, depth of target, presence of aquitard, intrusion ratio), the capacity of deep natural pathways to enable hydraulic fracturing fluids, chemicals, or produced water to reach shallow groundwater, will be reduced or difficult. Deep artesian water could however be intercepted at different depths and, based on past groundwater exploration in the Karoo, water could flow into horizontal fractures or openings characterising the shallow aquifers: sills-ring complexes, lithological contacts, and transgressive fractures across dolerite dykes. However, above-ground water and wastewater management safeguards are needed to protect shallow groundwater from potential water quality degradation due to a) flowback or produced water b) stray gas and/or c) spills or illicit discharges that could introduce contaminants into groundwater resources. This paper describes a systematic approach to evaluate hydrogeologic risk pathways and informs adaptive management policies to protect South African groundwater resources.

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Abstract Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction using fracking can damage groundwater resources, a crucial resource in many countries. Protecting groundwater will become more urgent as climate change and population growth increase pressure on water demand, especially in water-scarce countries. But despite the strategic importance of groundwater, it is often poorly managed during UOG extraction. This review considers three types of regulation (command-and-control, market-based and voluntary) in countries where UOG extraction is allowed, to identify the best suite of regulations to protect groundwater resources during this process. We propose a regulatory framework that includes both ?hard? command-and-control regulations and ?soft? market-based and voluntary regulations. If regulations are to protect groundwater resources effectively, public disclosure of UOG operations must be required and the information must be stored in publicly accessible databases. This would allow for independent scientific review of data by academia and the private sector, in addition to government scrutiny of the data. These parties can then make recommendations to government, allowing timeous and appropriate adaptive management and the amendment of regulations as necessary. And, most importantly, these regulations must be properly enforced to avoid (in some cases irreversible) damage to groundwater resources. This article is characterized under: Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water Human Water > Water Governance Science of Water > Water Quality

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The rapid development of shale gas in the United States raises potential concerns about environmental impacts. This paper examines how environmental regulations are enforced in shale gas development in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale development and the resulting compliance behaviors, employing the economic literature of crime and punishment as the analytical framework. A three-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) is used to analyze the enforcement and compliance performance of regulators and shale gas operators, respectively, employing data spanning from 2011 to 2017. Significant variation in the environmental non-compliance exists between both wells and operators. The empirical results suggest progressive directions for adjusting environmental enforcement strategies in Pennsylvania and provide implications and references for other regions with similar shale gas ambitions.

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Today's 'fracking debate' includes a familiar set of actors and arguments. Advocates of unconventional oil and gas production contend that it has contributed to an economic renaissance for many subnational governments and has improved American energy security. Opponents suggest that unconventional production is an environmental and public health hazard. One way that states are trying to balance the economic benefits of continued energy production with environmental protection is through the use of information disclosure requirements. Prior work notes that the rigor of state disclosure standards relative to unconventional oil and gas production vary. Through measures of association and exact logistic regression, this project expands the disclosure literature by focusing on three types of disclosure: pre-drilling notification, chemical disclosure during operations, and trade secret exemptions.

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We introduce the new concept of embodied energy injustices in order to encourage integrative, systemic, transboundary assessment of the global implications and responsibility of energy-policy decisions. Embodied energy injustices reframe considerations of energy justice to explicitly consider hidden and distant injustices (upstream or downstream) arising from the extraction, processing, transportation and disposal of energy resources. We assess the embodied energy injustices connected to the decision to decommission a coal-fired power plant in Salem, Massachusetts, US, and its replacement with a natural-gas-fired power station. Cerrejón open-pit coalmine in La Guajira, Colombia, powered the Salem plant for over a decade. Fracked gas from Pennsylvania now supplies fuel for the new power station. Comparing the extraction of these two very different fuels reveals multiple parallel injustices. But the regulatory environment fails to account for the different constituencies, jurisdictions and effects that fall outside the formal remit of existing impact assessments. We therefore call for mandatory transboundary impact assessments of large-scale energy-related projects, which explicitly integrate previously unrecognized social-environmental harms and injustices. Expanding energy law and policy discussions to incorporate embodied energy injustices can enhance sustainable energy governance and enable corporate accountability for the transboundary harms of fossil fuel extraction and use. Linking chains of energy injustice—by revealing their interconnected positions along fossil-fuel supply chains—may help generate and unite powerful trans-local solidarity movements, which politicize local struggles within wider national, regional and global energy politics.

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The U.S. is undergoing a rapid energy transition, driven in large part an explosion in oil and gas production driven by unconventional drilling technologies. Some communities have embraced the boom in new oil and gas production, often resisting efforts to regulate the oil and gas industry. On the other hand, some states and municipalities have effectively banned new oil and gas drilling. In this paper, we examine how natural resource dependence, local economic conditions, and perceived economic benefits relate to support for restrictive oil and gas regulations in Colorado, US. Using representative survey data, our results suggest that perceived benefits, especially in the form of tax revenue, predict oil and gas policy preferences, while local and personal economic circumstances have little impact.

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Shale gas development has been heralded as a game changer that has had, and will continue to have, repercussions for energy scenarios around the world, and natural gas has been hailed as the transition fuel to a low carbon future. Shale gas production-made feasible and economical by advances in hydraulic fracturing-offers a solution in the face of increased demand, instability in key producing regions, and societal aversion to the risks of nuclear energy. This "golden future," however, has come into conflict with increasing concerns over water. This paper examines policy and regulatory frameworks around hydraulic fracturing in Texas and Spain in order to consider the trade-offs-particularly at the expense of water security-that may occur as decision-makers pursue improvements in energy security. We compare regulatory, institutional, and cultural contexts in order to understand and evaluate the robustness of these frameworks to prevent the reduction in water security as a consequence of the pursuit of energy security. Paucity of data is discussed. We also consider questions such as disclosure of information to the public about water use or the chemical composition of frac fluids and public opinion about hydraulic fracturing. Lessons are drawn that may assist policymakers who seek to guarantee water security while pursuing energy security.

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Over the past decade, the U.S. has had significant growth in oil and gas production due in large part to hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"); and yet, we know little about public preferences for oil and gas regulations. Political identity is a strong predictor of policy support in other arenas. The purpose of this analysis is to clarify the role of political identity in support for oil and gas policy. We hypothesized that political identity has a direct impact on policy support and an indirect impact via risk/benefit perceptions and trust in the oil and gas industry. Using the KHB mediation technique, we show that about half of the impact of political identity is indirect via these mediating variables. We suggest that political identity is a uniquely important factor in environmental governance because it impacts both policy preferences and other variables that, in turn, also explain policy preferences. Political identity appears to be salient, even for local governance controversies.

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This paper situates the question of shale gas mining in South Africa within broader debates on policy co-ordination within governmental systems. The prospect of shale gas mining has posed severe challenges for the complex inter-governmental system in South Africa. Three key Departments are affected by possible shale gas mining: Mineral Resources, Environmental Affairs and Water Resources. Each of these Departments have different relationships with the provincial and municipal "spheres of government". The Department of Mineral Resources has attempted to promote shale gas mining with no reference to municipalities, whereas the other two Departments have attempted to build up municipal capacity. Municipalities have key functions which are protected in the Constitution. However, many municipalities are weak institutions, unwilling to defend their powers. The paper examines Municipal Integrated Development Plans in the potential shale gas region. Most municipalities seem to have no awareness at all of the shale gas issue. Recently, a High Court ruled that any shale gas mining regulations must be made by the Department of Environmental Affairs. With its more decentralist approach to governance, it will mean that municipalities will have more opportunities to participate in shale gas mining decisions.

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This article examines shale gas development in Mexico. Its qualitative analysis focuses on the regulatory setting, challenges and perspectives, and on the feasibility to 'smartly regulate' this issue. The analysis demonstrates that Mexico's shale gas development is especially difficult to regulate due to its high complexity. Increasing environmental impacts, lack of regulatory and industry expertise and a novel regulatory setting with multiple regulators and levels of accountability increase the regulatory challenge. Innovative and complementary regulatory tools, best practice and specialised regulation are likely to lessen the environmental impacts associated with shale gas development and regulators have already made significant progress in this direction. The first competitive bidding for unconventional terrestrial resources was announced in March 2018 and is the tip of the iceberg of commercial production of Mexico's vast shale gas resources. Nevertheless, the particular complexity of regulating shale gas development in Mexico, suggests that even if 'smart regulation' is possible and is properly implemented substantial adverse environmental impacts may still occur.

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Unconventional natural gas resources recovered using hydraulic fracturing (HF) is contributing to national energy self-sufficiency and could be a significant factor in the global transition to a low carbon economy. Using an integrated risk management framework, we conduct a comparative analysis of practices and review recommendations of a regulatory, economic, advisory, community-based, or technological nature for British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. Lessons learned from international assessments of risk issues are also considered. Overall, there is much less emphasis on potential impacts on human health than on the environment. The analysis also identifies a need for a strong and adequately resourced regulatory framework that works in concert with enhanced technological requirements; evidence-based emissions standards; regulated and/or community-based setbacks and buffer zones; operational surveillance, reporting, and disclosure of value-chain activities in an accessible and transparent way; community participation in the development of these mechanisms; and provision for legacy sites. Economic options such as performance-based taxes and fees, industry-funded studies, the role of carbon taxes, and cost allocations to protect or improve determinants of health are the least advanced option. This analysis provides support for the development of a risk management policy agenda with respect to broad and persistent HF risk management issues.

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In the face of declining natural gas production, depleting foreign revenue and the local and international demand for natural gas, Algeria seeks to develop its substantial shale gas potential to avoid economic decline. This paper uses a SWOT analysis method to identify key policy and legal issues for shale gas development in Algeria. It broadly investigates the internal strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) and external opportunities (O) and threats (T) facing Algeria’s shale gas development. Qualitative data from policies, laws, and reports, and literature reviews from books and journal articles are utilised in examining Algeria's external and internal environment concerning the development of its shale gas. Based on the analysis, this paper identifies alternative strategies and responses for the development of shale gas resource in Algeria. Thus, it is necessary for providing the Algerian government and other stakeholders with the relevant information to identify which course of action it could take with reference to developing the country’s shale gas. It further provides researchers with a foundational understanding of the broad context surrounding development so that future research can also assess shale gas development in Algeria.

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In Australia, a series of independent inquiries into onshore unconventional gas have all concluded that the technical risks can be managed, albeit pending changes to existing regulatory systems. This is confounded by regulations for unconventional gas development differing across the jurisdictional boundaries of three levels of government. The question of whether to develop unconventional gas resources has become highly political, influenced by a growth in activism and also by the contradictory pressures of transitioning to a low-carbon future and domestic gas shortages. A coal seam gas (CSG) industry was developed in the state of Queensland but exploration and development in other states has been stopped or delayed. In response to community concerns about the industry, and as issues relating to co-existence became apparent, there have been changes made to the regulatory and policy environments, as well as improvements in industry practice and transparency. In this viewpoint piece, we bring an industry and government perspective to the conversation about unconventional gas development by outlining industry and regulatory responses to development of the unconventional gas industry in Australia, largely over the past decade. We conclude that despite many and significant regulatory and industry responses, public acceptance of the industry remains low.

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The process of hydraulic fracturing has unlocked an unprecedented amount of oil and gas in the United States. Hydrocarbons are not the only output from this process, though, as billions of barrels of “produced” water are extracted and subsequently pumped back underground. This process of injecting produced water into disposal wells has been causally linked to the rise in earthquakes. Here I show how the amount of earthquakes in Oklahoma are positively linked to the price of oil, and further find that the decrease in earthquake activity in Oklahoma is due to both the drop in oil prices and the regulatory directives of regional authorities. The estimated impact of the various shut-in policies have been small compared to the reduction in earthquakes due to the broad price decline, though. I find that the drop in oil prices that began in mid-2014 led to as large of a reduction in earthquakes as the combined effect f new policies that started in March of 2015.

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In the U.S., governance for oil and gas development has been increasingly devolved from centralized, relatively powerful governments to lower levels of government. At the same time, state governments increasingly preempt local authority, resulting in significant state-local contestation over oil and gas governance. The purpose of this analysis is to understand what level of government (i.e. local, state or federal) Colorado residents believe should regulate the oil and gas industry (referred to as governance scale preferences) in this era of neoliberalism, devolution, and state preemption. Colorado has been an epicenter of unconventional oil and gas production for years and is one of the most heavily-drilled states in the U.S. The state also lauds itself as being at the forefront of state-level regulation of the industry, key to our concerns here Descriptive results indicated that few support federal exemptions while many respondents endorse local regulation. Further, few variables have consistent results in the binary logistic regression models. Broadly, our analysis suggests that the public seems to endorse a complex, multi-layered system of governance for oil and gas development, suggesting that current efforts to concentrate regulatory power in state governments is at odds with public preferences.

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Research on unconventional oil and gas (UOG) development has focused so intently on hydraulic fracturing that it has overlooked “fracking's” partner technology, horizontal drilling (HZD), which now enables operators to drill more than 2.5 miles. This innovation merits examination because it generates opportunities and challenges – in tension – for regions experiencing UOG development. HZD allows operators to condense their surface impacts by drilling multiple wells per pad. This consolidation benefits the many in a given extractive area, but at the expense of the few who live near intensified sites. HZD also allows operators to more flexibly position these large well pads. Combined, these drilling innovations are further splintering an already fragmented UOG governance space and creating novel procedural fairness challenges, especially in cities. This study offers the concept of “piecemeal participation” to describe these challenges, drawing from a case study in Colorado. Piecemeal participation occurs when governments structure public input on a site-by-site basis, while operators, leveraging HZD's reach and flexibility, plan drilling and weigh alternative drilling locations at the scale of the city. The analysis evaluates piecemeal participation using standard procedural fairness criteria, generating findings of broader relevance as urban areas anticipate UOG development and HZD worldwide.

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This article examines shale gas development in Mexico. Its qualitative analysis focuses on the regulatory setting, challenges and perspectives, and on the feasibility to ‘smartly regulate’ this issue. The analysis demonstrates that Mexico’s shale gas development is especially difficult to regulate due to its high complexity. Increasing environmental impacts, lack of regulatory and industry expertise and a novel regulatory setting with multiple regulators and levels of accountability increase the regulatory challenge. Innovative and complementary regulatory tools, best practice and specialised regulation are likely to lessen the environmental impacts associated with shale gas development and regulators have already made significant progress in this direction. The first competitive bidding for unconventional terrestrial resources was announced in March 2018 and is the tip of the iceberg of commercial production of Mexico´s vast shale gas resources. Nevertheless, the particular complexity of regulating shale gas development in Mexico, suggests that even if ‘smart regulation’ is possible and is properly implemented substantial adverse environmental impacts may still occur.

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ABSTRACT. Outside the US, the commercial development of shale gas and oil will need to overcome significant legal and regulatory challenges if it is ever to ta

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Biophysical and socio-economic monitoring during unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction is important to assess change and to have reference conditions against which to identify UOG extraction activity impacts. The large-scale cumulative impacts of UOG extraction makes standardised monitoring across geographic and sociopolitical regions important. This article emphasises the importance of a robust monitoring framework that must serve as a guideline for planning monitoring activities during UOG extraction. A case study from South Africa is presented to illustrate important aspects to address during the development of a UOG extraction monitoring framework. The South African case is critically assessed and resultant policy implications are discussed. Important policy considerations include performing baseline monitoring during UOG extraction, performing UOG extraction monitoring in an integrated, systematic, and standardised manner, ensuring that proper resources are available to perform the monitoring and implementing an adaptive management plan that is linked to UOG extraction monitoring.

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In the U.S., the current regulatory regime for unconventional oil and gas development is extremely contested, with controversial exemptions buried in federal law and significant state-local conflict. Hence, the question of the appropriate scale of governance (e.g. federal, state, or local) for oil and gas development is unsettled. In this analysis, we consider the views of local policy actors in the western states of Utah and Colorado. We ask how factors such as the perceived importance of the industry and local economic conditions influence scalar preferences. Results imply that local policy actors tend to endorse local control and are generally not supportive of federal exemptions.

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The boom in shale gas production has been accompanied by concerns that polycentricity, whereby multiple levels of government share regulatory authority, has resulted in an inefficient and ineffective governance. The Bloomington School of institutional analysis suggests otherwise. Drawing on the work of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom, we clarify a diverse regulatory response to shale gas development within federations may be appropriate depending on the physical context of shale gas development, local demand for economic development (including geology, geography, and the built environment), the regulatory capacity of local governments, uncertainty about the appropriate regulations to address externalities from shale gas production, and the extent of inter-jurisdictional coordination problems. We apply the framework to regulation of shale gas development two fracking federations: the US and EU. In each context, letting a thousand regulatory flowers bloom is more sensible than uniform standards.

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Multi-stakeholder governance arrangements involving co-operation between public and non-state actors are a vital part of the governance landscape for addressing social impacts resulting from resources development. Yet, the current mantra for ‘collaboration’ has gained relative credibility and legitimacy without scrutiny of the democratic characteristics and quality of these institutional arrangements. This article responds to this normative concern by examining the implications for the democratic legitimacy of multi-stakeholder governance arrangements in cases where private resource extraction companies, who do not necessarily act in the public interest, exercise a ‘metagovernance’ role. We explore this topic through a qualitative case-study comparison of affordable housing governance in regions impacted by unconventional gas development in Australia and the United States. We argue that while multi-stakeholder governance arrangements convened by resource extraction companies can support situations of democracy under certain conditions, resource extraction companies structure the processes within these collaborative arrangements to the benefits of specific actors, notably the extractive companies themselves and other profit-orientated actors. In particular, we illustrate the depoliticizing effects of these institutions, whereby in some cases, they are used to constrain debates about the social impacts of extractives development, and circumscribe certain types of actors from participation in deliberative debate and decision-making. We underscore the importance of state intervention in ensuring communicative processes induced by corporate actors proceed according to the principles of deliberative democracy.

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Freshwater shortages in the United States have led to increased use of treated brackish groundwater for domestic, agricultural, and municipal uses. This increased use highlights the need for protecting groundwater resources, especially during unconventional oil and gas development. We analyzed the criteria that define protected groundwater in 17 oil- and natural-gas-producing states. In general, we find that these criteria are ambiguous and do not protect brackish groundwater to criteria established for Underground Sources of Drinking Water (USDWs) in the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Underground Injection Control Program. This lack of consistent protection, and continuing unconventional oil and gas development in formations containing USDWs, highlights the need for all states to protect groundwater to the same federally defined standard for USDWs to safeguard fresh and brackish groundwater for present and future use.

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Many governments and corporations have embraced information disclosure as an alternative to conventional environmental and public health regulation. Public policy research on transparency has examined the effects of particular disclosure policies, but there is limited research on how the construction of disclosure policies relates to social movements, or how transparency and ignorance are related. As a first step toward filling this theoretical gap, this study seeks to conceptualize disclosure conflicts, the social processes through which secrecy is challenged, defended, and mobilized in public technoscientific controversies. In the case of shale oil and gas development (“fracking”) in the United States, activists and policy makers have demanded information about the contents of fluids used in the extraction process and the routes of oil shipments by rail. Drilling and railroad companies have resisted both demands. Studies of such disputes reveal the dynamic and conflictual nature of information disclosure. In both cases, disclosure conflicts unfold dynamically over time, reflecting power disparities between industry groups and their challengers and requiring coalitions of activists to pursue multiple tactics. When a disclosure policy is established, it does not resolve social conflict but shifts the focus of struggle to the design of information systems, the quality of disclosed data, and the knowledge gaps that are now illuminated.

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Managing Environmental Liability: An Evaluation of Bonding Requirements for Oil and Gas Wells in the United States

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Abstract, Radioactive materials for the medical, technological, and industrial sectors have been effectively regulated in the United States since as early as 1962. The steady increase in the exploration and production of shale gas in recent years has led to concerns about exposures to Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) and Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (TENORM) in oil and gas waste streams. This study applied policy surveillance methods to conduct a cross-sectional fifty-state survey of law and regulations of NORM and TENORM waste from oil and gas operations. Results indicated that seventeen states drafted express regulations to reduce exposure to oil and gas NORM and TENORM waste. States with active oil and gas drilling that lack regulations controlling exposure to NORM and TENORM may leave the public and workers susceptible to adverse health effects from radiation. The study concludes with recommendations in regard to regulating oil and gas NORM and TENORM waste.

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We address a key puzzle in policy studies: why don't major differences in political systems and policy produce major differences in policy processes, outputs, and outcomes? We show why key aspects of fracking policy are similar in the UK and Switzerland despite the UK majoritarian government being 'all out for shale' and Switzerland's consensus democracy favouring moratoriums. We use the 'advocacy coalition framework' and new survey data to show why differences in UK and Swiss processes are subtle. In both cases, actors cooperate and compete with each other by sharing information within and across coalitions.

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This is a comparative analysis of how regulatory regimes overlying the Bakken Shale Formation (Manitoba, Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan) provide for public participation in government decision-making processes for hydraulic fracturing technology. Three processes are examined and analysed: (1) policy development and rule-making; (2) licensing and operational decision-making processes; and (3) ensuring compliance with licence or approval conditions. Statutory provisions for public participation are often associated with the common law duty of 'procedural fairness'. A description of the Bakken and an overview of public concerns about potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on the environment, human health and communities are provided.

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Uncertainty and risk can often characterize the conditions under which new policy is developed. This has been particularly true in the case of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") and its regulation within America's federal system of governance. During the George W. Bush administration, the federal government intentionally limited the Environmental Protection Agency's legal authority to regulate processes associated with fracking. This decision shifted the primary responsibility for the regulation of fracking to the states. Some states, in the interest of economic development, were quick to adopt policies that promoted the use of fracking despite environmental concerns regarding the risks. Other states were more cautious, instituting moratoriums on its use. In this study, we develop a typology that can explain the actions of states in response to uncertainty. We also provide seven lessons that can be learned from the regulation of hydraulic fracturing in the United States.

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Over the past decade, directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing enabled an unconventional oil and gas extraction (UOGE) boom in many regions of the United States, including parts of Pennsylvania. This revolution has created serious concerns about the capability of existing institutions to govern important societal outcomes associated with UOGE. We present a conceptual framework for assessing key societal outcomes influenced by UOGE governance. In applying this framework to Pennsylvania, we discern certain institutional strengths that have allowed the Commonwealth to reap appreciable short-term economic growth from rich resource endowments. We also find, however, that several institutional weaknesses have allowed costs externalized to the environment, public health, and community integrity to offset some proportion of those economic benefits. Likewise, we find that governance of UOGE in Pennsylvania has contributed to a bifurcated sociopolitical landscape wherein adversarial coalitions dispute the legitimacy of the industry and its governance.

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Large firms are becoming increasingly dominant in the natural gas production industry. At the same time, regulators and environmental groups are concerned about potential environmental damage associated with hydraulic fracturing. However, small firms are protected from the full extent of their damages, while large firms must internalize a greater portion of their social costs. This paper examines the effect of firm size and liability on environmental safety in the context of hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale across three dimensions of size. Impacts of firm size on safety are found across legal, regulatory, and brand dimensions of size with the largest effects being driven by changes in regulatory liability. These safety gains are sizable as violation rates would be approximately twice as high if firms at remained at 2008 sizes.

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This paper considers public support for increased regulation of unconventional oil and gas development in Colorado. We examine the role of community economic identity and investigate the possibility of “colliding treadmills”in local political economies as drivers of policy preferences.We find that many place-based variables do little to predict regulatory support, but the cost associated with regulation (increased taxes) and political identity are especially important. Further, this paper is one of a handful of sociological analyses to employ the contingent valuation method for environmental valuation, in doing so it provides a first step toward establishing an empirically rigorous sociology of environmental valuation.

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The Shale Network is a group of stakeholders collating, publishing, and conducting research on water quality data collected in the northeastern United States experiencing natural gas extraction from shale using hydraulic fracturing. In developing the Shale Network, we have experienced reluctance to share data from all participating sectors. This paper explores this reluctance, identifying barriers to greater collaboration among multiple stakeholders in natural resource management projects. Findings are derived from participant observation of the Shale Network team, surveys conducted during Shale Network workshops, interviews with water quality stakeholders, and participant observation of water quality monitoring training sessions. The barriers identified include perceptions about data problems and quality, technical capacity, regulatory and legal limitations, competition for resources, and resource allocation decisions. This paper identifies strategies the Shale Network has used to overcome data-sharing barriers to expand a culture of data sharing that supports enhanced nature resource management and citizen engagement.

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From 2002 to 2015, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (DFW) experienced high population growth rates and booming shale gas production via hydraulic fracturing of the Barnett Shale. In response, DFW municipalities adopted gas well drilling ordinances and enacted setback distance policies to regulate the proximity between new gas wells and homes. However, landscape and planning impacts arising from subsequent development of homes around hydrocarbon extraction sites are unknown. Here, we use quantitative and qualitative methods to 1) quantify spatial and land-use effects of gas well production sites, 2) identify municipal staff perspectives on overlapping gas well and suburban landscapes, and 3) evaluate municipal governance strategies for dealing with subsequent development of homes around production sites. Our results show that production sites occupy approximately 3000ha in DFW and nearly 2% of surface areas in some high growth municipalities. Over time, developed land covers increasingly surrounded gas production sites. We identified three statistically significant social perspectives among municipal officials, two indicating concern with how gas wells impede future urban development. The majority of municipal governments place the onus on homebuyers to decide whether to live near gas wells, though a few municipalities require notification of their presence. The parallel pressures to develop surface and mineral interests by two powerful industries – property developers and oil and gas operators, respectively – create a complex regulatory and planning environment for municipalities where protections of resident health, safety, and welfare are left to the discretion of corporate entities and social licenses.

Abstract:
Who owns an area's natural resources affects the local financial gains from extraction and participation in resource governance. We develop a typology of ownership regimes using two dimensions of ownership, private versus public and local versus absentee, and apply it to unconventional natural gas development in the United Kingdom (UK) and the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. We find that local residents in Pennsylvania own 53% of the acreage leased for development and capture an estimated 8.5% of the value of production of the typical well, more than double what is expected from a well in the UK's public-absentee regime despite revenue-sharing policies. The dollar amount of local payments is also larger in Pennsylvania, with the difference reflecting policies and institutions, not differences in the value of production. The Pennsylvania case provides a benchmark for public-absentee owners considering policies to direct payments to communities hosting extraction: it gives the local payments corresponding to the case where subsurface owners voluntarily negotiate lease terms with energy firms and roughly half of ownership revenues accrue locally.

Abstract:
Beginning in the 2000s, the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region became home to the world's largest and longest experiment in urban shale gas production, with 25,182 drilling permits issued from 2000 to 2016 in the Barnett Shale. Urban hydrocarbon governance centered on establishing statutory setback distances between drilling sites and nearest houses or other protected uses. Here we analyze qualitative interview data obtained with a rigorous sampling frame to examine processes and outcomes of municipal-level hydrocarbon governance. We find that early municipal responses (2001-2002) revealed lack of technical expertise to respond to unconventional drilling and production. Controversial wells, which residents considered too close to houses, focused governance debates in several municipalities. Municipal policymakers reported that protecting public health and safety were top priorities in determining setbacks. After 2003, policymakers copied ordinance language from neighboring municipalities and established task forces and working groups to reduce political tensions. The role of the hydrocarbon industry included frequent claims seeking to exploit the longstanding separation of mineral and property estates, which encouraged municipalities to reduce setbacks and lower potential exposure to regulatory takings lawsuits. Over time, municipal regulatory power in hydrocarbon governance decreased while industry power increased, offering several implications for corporate responsibility and social license debates.

Abstract:
Various biophysical and socio-economic impacts may be associated with unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction. A vulnerability map may assist governments during environmental assessments, spatial planning and the regulation of UOG extraction, as well as decision-making around UOG extraction in fragile areas. A regional interactive vulnerability map was developed for UOG extraction in South Africa. This map covers groundwater, surface water, vegetation, socio-economics and seismicity as mapping themes, based on impacts that may emanate from UOG extraction. The mapping themes were developed using a normative approach, where expert input during the identification and classification of vulnerability indicators may increase the acceptability of the resultant map. This article describes the development of the interactive vulnerability map for South Africa, where UOG extraction is not yet allowed and where regulations are still being developed to manage this activity. The importance and policy implications of using vulnerability maps for managing UOG extraction impacts in countries where UOG extraction is planned are highlighted in this article.

Abstract:
When a publicly held company proposed shipping wastewaters from fracking sites in the Marcellus Shale by barge over the Ohio River, public sentiment was strong. The people of Appalachia had suffered water contamination from accidents involving extractive industries numerous times in the past. This case study used qualitative methods to evaluate and measure public participation in permit proceedings in both the United States Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers. Our study highlighted public success in defeating the proposal to allow shipping of fracking waste by barge on rivers in the United States, but confirms the findings of earlier studies showing difficulties individual citizens have in effectively participating and engaging in federal permit and rulemaking proceedings. The study suggests that to reduce environmental injustices in future proceedings, federal agencies issuing permits and engaged in rulemakings should adapt procedures to expand Internet availability of dockets.

Abstract:
The increase in natural gas production in North America resulting from the implementation of new technologies related to the fracturing (fracking) of natural gas-bearing shale reservoirs has enhanced the security of supply and lowered energy costs in the continent. Yet the environmental impact associated with shale gas development has raised concerns and debate among energy and environmental policy makers as to how best to address these concerns. As Canada’s largest producer of natural gas, the Province of Alberta is an example of a jurisdiction with numerous regulations for dealing with such environmental risks. This paper applies the CO/RE model of Konschnik and Bolingin examining Alberta’s environmental regulatory framework and the impact; it will have on further shale gas production in the province. Aside from the identification of risks associated with increased seismicity, the results of this examination suggest that the current regulatory environment does not appear to have any adverse effect on current and future shale gas production within the province. Furthermore, Alberta’s environmental regulation has influenced shale gas producers to pursue innovation in technology and engineering practice and has helped establish a collaborative approach to mitigating environmental risk.

Abstract:
In the fight between state versus local control in Colorado's unconventional energy industry, Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) signed directly between operators and local governments are becoming an increasingly popular strategy for formally integrating citizen concerns into oil and gas development. Yet little is known about how these agreements may shape public opinion of industry and local government. This article uses mixed methods to investigate if and how MOUs shaped public perceptions of the industry and the town government in a politically heterogeneous suburban Colorado town home to the state's first MOU. While public comments have become significantly more favorable toward oil and gas development over time, our research reveals that the MOU itself did not significantly change those perceptions. The more significant factor was the election of a town board committed to processes of engagement and transparency, including a meaningful revision of the original MOU.

Abstract:
As one of the largest consumers of energy and emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, the USA must balance energy demand and security with environmental responsibility. Recently, shale gas has emerged as a promising element toward a solution to this dilemma. Currently, shale gas production is regulated under the same rules that govern traditional oil and gas operations, without consideration for the unique environmental challenges associated with the unconventional gas extraction process. It involves small independent operators that typically utilize the most cost-effective extraction processes without necessarily prioritizing the environmental impact of their operations. As a result, opposition to shale gas extraction threatens the continuity and sustainability of the shale gas industry. The negative externalities and information asymmetry associated with this market continue to be captured in a price of natural gas which is not inclusive of the environmental costs of the extraction processes. The objective of this work is to determine the environmental policies that will lead to sustainable shale gas production. A hierarchical approach is developed to benchmark current technologies and to generate, assess and select technologies and policies that overcome market hurdles while addressing EHSS objectives. The approach analyzes the technical and microeconomic impacts of environmental remediation techniques and then takes a multipronged policy approach which supports the microeconomic, environmental, health and safety goals. To illustrate the usefulness of the proposed approach, a case study is solved for the Barnett Shale play to assess at the microeconomic and environmental implications of environmental remediation technologies for shale gas operations. Based on the results of the analysis, technology changes create both economic and environmental benefits for operators indicating a market failure resulting in the priceless favorable technologies do not reflect their impact on the environment. The market failures in the process are analyzed and four policy alternatives to the status quo are evaluated against four policy goals. The primary recommendation resulting from the analysis, the Comprehensive policy alternative, uses a phased approach to drive ongoing innovation in the shale gas industry, stimulate demand for natural gas and reduce the information asymmetry. The implementation of this policy is then applied to an economic and environmental model of a cluster of wells in the Barnett Shale to determine how the policy would be implemented.

Abstract:
Proposals to use the process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract natural gas in the United Kingdom has been met with both opposition and support as has often been the case for new extractive industries exploring new techniques or applications thereof. An idiosyncratic feature of the debate surrounding hydraulic fracturing is however the seeming lack of congruence of the concerns raised by experts and civic opposition. The authors consider the potential implications of this fragmentation of fears surrounding the process for its future regulation. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.