America faces a growing energy challenge. We require energy for our every activity, yet we increasingly recognize that there are no easy energy solutions. Reliance upon traditional fossil fuels - many of them imported-jeopardizes our national security and releases harmful emissions, yet...

An oil and gas extraction technique called hydraulic fracturing (also called fracing, fracking, or hydrofracking) has swept the country and has raised the stakes of the energy policy debate. As operators drill thousands of new wells and inject water and chemicals down these wells in order to...

The United States has traditionally enlisted citizens in efforts to control industrial activity and its effects on public welfare. A growing energy revolution, however - led by a new method of extracting natural gas from shale called “slickwater hydraulic fracturing” (described in brief as...

Energy drives economies and quality of life, yet accessible traditional fuels are increasingly scarce. Federal, state, and local governments have thus determined that renewable energy development is essential and have passed substantial requirements for its use. These lofty goals will fail,...

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...

As technologies change and the scale of human activity grows, so, too, does the law. The surge of oil and gas production in the United States, spurred by hydraulic fracturing in shale formations, has fomented a sea change in oil and gas law, substantially infusing this area with more complex...

Since its introduction in 1967, the account of property rights formation by Harold Demsetz has pervaded the legal and economic literature. Demsetz theorized that as a once-abundant, commonly-shared resource becomes more valuable and sought-after, users will move to more clearly define property...

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...