US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar released an integrated activity plan and final environmental impact statement allowing for development of about 72% of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska’s crude oil supply.

The Republican Governors and Republican Attorneys General Associations renewed a request to US President Barack Obama to reject the US Bureau of Land Management’s proposed regulation of hydraulic fracturing.

Center for Sustainable Economy, a Santa Fe, NM, environmental economics organization, sued the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management over the US Department of the Interior agency’s first 5-year US Outer Continental Shelf program.

The US Environmental Protection Agency finalized an update to its national air-quality standards for particulate matter 2.5, setting the annual health standard at 12 µg/cu m.

The UK government lifted a temporary moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, opening the way for exploration and development of unconventional natural gas just days after UK Chancellor George Osborne announced a push for gas development in his Autumn Statement.

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed new particulate matter limits, which the White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing, should be rejected, an American Petroleum Institute official urged.

Oil & Gas UK welcomed publication by the UK Treasury of details of agreements between the government and oil and gas operators covering tax relief for decommissioning offshore facilities.

UK Chancellor George Osborne and Energy Sec. Ed Davey emphasized the need for new natural gas supplies, saying the government plans to establish an Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil.

The Canadian government approved two acquisitions by international state-owned energy companies for Canadian oil sands and shale gas assets but indicated that approval for future transactions by other state-owned enterprises for petroleum assets would be approved only under exceptional circumstances.

The US Bureau of Land Management’s Rawlins, Wyo., field office is seeking public comment on its environmental analysis of a proposed major natural gas development expansion on 1.1 million acres under mixed management in Carbon and Sweetwater counties, Wyo.

US Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar issued a secretarial order on Dec. 3 to facilitate co-development of oil, gas, and potash within a 500,000-acre designated potash area (DPA) in southeastern New Mexico.

A major user of natural gas for chemical production has added to criticism of the Department of Energy’s report on the economic benefits of US LNG exports, saying it gives insufficient attention to the benefits of gas use in domestic manufacturing (OGJ Online, Dec. 6, 2012).