American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2017 - 123

The Alliance says the meeting also
provided an occasion for it to honor Texas
State Representative James L. "Jim" Keffer, R-Eastwood, with the Senator Tom
Haywood Lifetime Achievement Award,
and Joe Mills of Waterford Energy LLC
with its Chairman's Distinguished Service
Award. The group indicates Keffer's
recognition was in part for his leadership
as chairman of the House Energy Resources and Natural Resources committees,
while Mills was lauded for his leadership
and service as chairman of the Host Committee for the Alliance's Houston Wildcatters during 2015-16.
Making Progress
According to the Alliance, the meeting
included a presentation by Chairman Emeritus Townes Pressler, president of Houston-based Pressler Petroleum Consultants,
who offered an update on the Vision 2020
initiative that the group implemented in
2015. Despite the downturn that has dogged
the oil and gas industry the past couple
years, the group says, Pressler maintained
that the initiative was progressing as
planned, and cited a number of goals that
already had been met, including:
* Ongoing review of the Alliance's
budget;
* Expansion of its insurance programs;
* Opening a new office in Austin,
Tx.; and
* Trimming the Board of Directors
to 36 members.
Among the matters that Alliance Executive Vice President John Tintera discussed was the "I Am Texas Oil" campaign

LEFT: Congratulating Texas State Representative James Keffer (center), R-Eastland, for
winning the Senator Tom Haywood Lifetime Achievement Award are Texas Alliance
Chairman Robert Osborne (left) and chief lobbyist Bill Stevens. RIGHT: Osborne and
Alliance Vice President of Development Sandi Simon (center) pause with Joe Mills,
recipient of the Chairman's Distinguished Award.

the group launched earlier in 2016, as
well as its e-internship program, student
memberships, and Alliance webinars.
President Alex Mills and chief lobbyist
Bill Stevens discussed a number of federal
and state issues, The Alliance reports, including:
* The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's rule governing methane emissions from new or modified oil and gas
sites, and a draft information collection
request covering existing sources;
* Endangered Species Act matters,
including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's proposal to expand areas that can
be designated as critical habitat, USFWS's
proposed revisions to the requirements
for species listing petitions, and the
agency's review of the hornshell mussel;
* The status of EPA's study on the

impact of hydraulic fracturing on water
quality; and
* Efforts by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
to expand federal authority over natural
gas gathering lines.
On another federal matter, the Alliance
formed a new Tax Committee, which it
says will address congressional efforts
to simplify the federal income tax code.
The group says Tinterra and Stevens
also discussed a number of other policy
issues, including:
* The RRC's sunset review;
* RRC budget challenges;
* Unitization;
* Induced seismicity; and
* Railroad Commissioner Christi
Craddick's initiative to trim regulatory
compliance costs.
❒

Final 'Planning 2.0' Rule Follows Draft
WASHINGTON-The U.S. Bureau of
Land Management's final "Planning 2.0"
rule released in December does little to
assuage concerns they raised about the
draft rule released last February, oil and
gas industry association complain.
BLM says its updated approach to resource management planning, which may
be accessed at www.blm.gov/plan2, is
intended to make its land use planning
"more accessible to the public, more responsive to the changing conditions on
public lands, and more efficient." The
agency says it launched its update effort
"after hearing from stakeholders that the
(previous) planning process was too slow
and cumbersome."
Its goals for the Planning 2.0 rule
making, BLM said last February, were
to:
* Improve the bureau's ability to re-

spond to social and environmental change
in a timely manner;
* Provide meaningful opportunities
for other federal agencies, state and local
governments, Indian tribes, and the public
to be involved in developing RMPs; and
* Improve BLM's ability to address
landscape-scale resource issues and to
apply landscape-scale management approaches (AOGR, March 2016, pg. 21).
All of which, industry associations
warn, could be double speak for moving
decision-making authority from state offices to Washington, potentially introducing
a bias against mineral resource development into land-use planning, and creating
additional avenues for anti-development
activists to protest resource development.
Says Kathleen Sgamma, president of
the Western Energy Alliance, "Our principle concerns with the proposed rule

were that it would transfer decisionmaking authority to Washington, limit
public involvement, unlawfully redefine
the concept of multiple use in a way that
prioritized conservation over sustained
yield of natural resources, and cause permitting delays."
Sgamma says the Alliance pointed out
those concerns to BLM in comments in
filed on the draft rule in conjunction with
a group of Western state counties that
contended Planning 2.0 would limit their
role in the planning process in violation
of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA).
Comments filed by the Independent
Petroleum Association of America and
the American Petroleum Institute expressed
concern that the planning process proposed
"would disfavor multiple use interests,
including developing oil and natural gas
JANUARY 2017 123
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