The US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued a corrective action order on Mar. 22 outlining steps Chevron Pipe Line Co. must take in response to a leak 4 days earlier in its products pipeline near Willard, Utah.

India is considering ways to boost assessment of its oil and gas potential and is working to lower bureaucratic impediments to exploration and production.

US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar issued a record of decision that finalizes a development process for federal oil shale and tar sands resources in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The US Bureau of Land Management simultaneously proposed revisions to regulations governing commercial development of those resources.

Forty US House members signed a Mar. 21 letter asking US President Barack Obama to urge his administration to complete an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a proposed seismic assessment of oil and gas resources on the US Atlantic Continental Shelf.

US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ronald L. Wyden (D-Ore.) asked the Environmental Protection Agency for data to explain unprecedented volatility in the market for Renewable Identification Numbers (RIN). RINs are designed to help refiners meet alternative fuel volume requirements under the federal Renewable Fuels Standard.

US Sens. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas.) said they will introduce an expanded version of federal energy revenue sharing legislation they have offered previously.

The UK government continues working toward offering tax breaks to encourage shale gas exploration and production, and the proposed measures could make onshore shale exploration more attractive to oil and gas companies already operating offshore UK, a Deloitte spokesman said.

The US should adopt an LNG export strategy that provides certainty for producers but doesn’t significantly increase prices for industries and other consumers, an expert told the US House Oversight and Investigations Committee.

The US House Energy and Commerce Committee launched a bipartisan review of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard with a white paper addressing the so-called “blend wall,” the point at which adding the required ethanol volumes to gasoline supplies would result in a blend above the currently allowable 10% ethanol limit.

The American Petroleum Institute and two Republican US senators separately asked the Environmental Protection Agency to address renewable identification number (RIN) costs, which have jumped by 1,400% since the beginning of 2012.

The Obama administration will need to open more onshore and offshore federal acreage to oil and gas development if it expects a proposed energy security research trust fund to work, experts agreed during a discussion of the concept Securing America’s Future Energy originally offered as part of its proposed national energy security strategy on Dec. 3, 2012.

The US Bureau of Land Management is seeking public comments on an environmental assessment of EOG Resources Inc.’s proposed liquids gathering system at the independent producer’s Natural Buttes natural gas leases in eastern Utah.

Existing federal regulations, many of which mandate specific fuels and restrict refining capacity additions, make continued US gasoline price volatility very likely, a Mar. 15 report from Energy Policy Research Foundation Inc. (EPRINC) suggested.