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V&E is a proud strategic sponsor of the 13th annual Rice Energy Finance Summit being held at Jones Graduate School of Business on Friday, November 12th.

Our Eleventh Annual Hydraulic Fracturing Symposium featured six dynamic speakers who focused on comprehensive analysis of the shifting industry landscape.

The oil and gas industry has long been the “bread and butter” for the Houston economy. It’s a major employer, it drives the economy, it underwrites local nonprofits — but it is changing.

The energy industry has long been a source of high-skilled and well-paid jobs, many paying six figures per year to employees.

On July 12, 2021, Physicians for Social Responsibility (“PSR”) issued a highly speculative report that raised concerns about a chemical approved by the EPA in 2011 for use in hydraulic fracturing fluid that “might” degrade into the so-called “forever chemicals” PFAS or PFOA.

In June 2021, the United States (“U.S.”) became the chair of the Biofuture Platform Initiative, an initiative of the Clean Energy Ministerial (the “Biofuture Platform”) for a two-year term, taking over the chair position from Brazil, which led the formation of the Biofuture Platform in 2016.

In its June 25, 2021 decision in HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining, LLC v. Renewable Fuels Association, the Supreme Court rejected the central holding of a January 2020 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that would have rendered almost all small refineries categorically ineligible for an exemption under the federal Renewable Fuels Standard program (RFS).

On June 30, 2021, President Biden signed into law a joint resolution of Congress repealing a Trump administration rule that removed methane as a pollutant regulated under the Clean Air Act in the oil and gas industry.

Partners Maggie Peloso and Tom Wilson recently sat down to continue the “conVErsation” started by partner Devika Kornbacher and counsel Sarah Fortt about the origins of the firm’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Taskforce.

The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) directs decommissioning of facilities located in federal waters of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) that are used in performance of oil and gas exploration and production activities, once those facilities are no longer useful for operations.

On May 27, 2021, against the backdrop of the Colonial Pipeline cybersecurity incident, the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (“TSA”) announced Security Directive Pipeline-2021-01 regarding enhancements to pipeline cybersecurity (the “Directive”).

As recently as 2015, if an investor was interested in understanding more about a company’s climate change risks and impact, it had the option of submitting a stockholder proposal to be included in the company’s proxy materials through the SEC’s antiquated Rule 14a-8 process.