Colorado: BLM Plans New Air Quality Studies for Drilling
The BLM said it’s moving for a voluntary remand of three oil and gas drilling projects in Garfield County in order to study potential air pollution impacts.  A press release from Earthjustice said the BLM will not approve additional drilling permits implementing the projects until it completes its additional analysis, but environmental groups claim the agency has been using invalid studies to permit new wells
on a regular basis.

Romney Calls for Streamlining Oil & Gas Development
If elected president, Mitt Romney says he’d push to streamline oil and gas development on western public lands. The call comes as part of Romney’s newly released energy plan …

Resource Development
Luke Schafer, West Slope coordinator for the Colorado Environmental Coalition, about the BLM’s draft amendment to increase oil and natural gas development in the Piceance Basin. The Bureau of Land Management released a draft amendment …

Black Hills Sells Bakken Shale Assets
Black Hills Corp. announced that its oil and gas subsidiary, Black Hills Exploration & Production Inc., signed a definitive agreement to sell about 85 percent of its Bakken and Three Forks shale assets in the Williston Basin of North Dakota for about $243 million, subject to pre-closing and post-closing adjustments.

QEP Pays $1.2M Fine for Inaccurate Energy Production …
DENVER — Natural gas and oil company QEP Resources Inc.
has paid a $1.2 million fine for inaccurate royalty and production reports for oil and gas wells in Colorado and Utah.