Breakfast Speaker - Rebecca Watson

Federal Policy Changes Impacting Oil and Gas Operations

Date: Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 7:30 AM - 9:00 AM

Location: Denver Athletic Club, 1325 Glenarm Place, Third Floor DPC Rooms 1&2, Denver, CO 80204
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Rebecca Watson, Attorney with Welborn Sullivan Meck & Tooley

In 2008, candidate Obama put energy policy as his number one priority-- and once elected his pick for the Secretary of the Interior, Colorado's Ken Salazar began to implement energy policy changes. In the 2011 State of the Union, President Obama embraced natural gas and argued his policies had reduced dependence on imported oil. What are the Obama federal land energy policies and what is ahead?

From Secretary Salazar's "new sheriff in town" announcement in Denver and cancellation of 77 Utah leases in February 2009 to his first Secretarial Order putting renewable energy as the Department's top priority and "fast-track" solar polcies to the May 2010 oil and gas leasing reforms and Wildlands policy-Secretary Salazar has made big changes in federal land energy policy. The presentation will look at the context for these actions, the results, the industry's response and what is on the horizon. On the horizon: new BLM rules for fracking and flaring natural gas on public lands, sage-grouse and other ESA species management, "second bites" at land use plans (Master Leasing Plans, lease parcel pre-sale NEPA, land use plan revisions) and fall-out from the lease issuance and categorical exclusion lawsuits.

Rebecca Watson is a shareholder with the law firm of Welborn Sullivan Meck and Tooley, P.C. and Secretary of Western Energy Alliance. Ms. Watson has more than 30 years of legal and policy experience in the fields of conventional and renewable energy, mining, natural resources and federal environmental law. As a trial lawyer and federal policy-maker she has been involved in a number of significant natural resource issues. As Assistant Secretary of the Interior Department, she had oversight of the Bureau of Land Management, Minerals Management Service and the Office of Surface Mining and led 12,000 employees and managed a $1 billion budget.

DPC Jan 12 Breakfast Speaker - Tom Doll, WY OGCC

Date: Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 7:30 AM - 9:00 AM MST