As the hunt for important unconventional gas resources in America expands, an increasingly popular method of wringing resources from stubborn underground formations is a process called hydraulic fracturing – also described as hydrofracturing, fracking, or fracing – wherein fluids are pumped...

In recent years, the federal government's efforts to open up competitive electricity markets have transformed how we think about the regulation of energy. In many respects, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) broad “deregulatory” efforts, which commenced in the 1990s, might...

The United States is in the midst of a boom in natural gas and oil production, much of which has occurred in shale formations around the country. As shale development has expanded — largely as a result of new horizontal drilling and “slickwater” hydraulic fracturing (fracking, fracing, or...

The modern administrative state recognizes only a limited set of events as triggers of needed regulatory change. Legislatures often direct agencies to act, or administrators independently write rules, when dramatic catastrophes occur or new technologies emerge. This framework ignores a simple...

Recent domestic growth in oil and gas natural gas production from shales and sandstones called “tight” formations — largely enabled by a modified technology called slickwater hydraulic fracturing — has driven both economic growth and environmental concerns. Public concerns have often...