Landowners screwed in $5B Chesapeake Energy shuffle

Published on March 13, 2014 in ProPublica: 

"At the end of 2011, Chesapeake Energy, one of the nation’s biggest oil and gas companies, was teetering on the brink of failure.


"Its legendary chief executive officer, Aubrey McClendon, was being pilloried for questionable deals, its stock price was getting hammered and the company needed to raise billions of dollars quickly.
"The money could be borrowed, but only on onerous terms. Chesapeake, which had burned money on a lavish steel-and-glass office complex in Oklahoma City even while the selling price for its gas plummeted, already had too much debt.

"In the months that followed, Chesapeake executed an adroit escape, raising nearly $5 billion with a previously undisclosed twist: By gouging many rural landowners out of royalty payments they were supposed to receive in exchange for allowing the company to drill for natural gas on their property.

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"In lawsuits in state after state, private landowners have won cases accusing the companies like Chesapeake of stiffing them on royalties they were due. Federal investigators have repeatedly identified underpayments of royalties for drilling on federal lands, including a case in which Chesapeake was fined $765,000 for “knowing or willful submission of inaccurate information” last year.


"Last month, Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett, who is seeking reelection, sent a letter to Chesapeake’s CEO saying the company’s expense billing “defies logic” and called for the state Attorney General to open an investigation.

"McClendon, a swashbuckling executive and fracking pioneer, was ultimately pushed out of his job. But the impact of the Financial Maneuvers that he made to save the company will reverberate for years. The winners, aside from Chesapeake, were a competing oil company and a New York private equity firm that fronted much of the money in exchange for promises of double-digit returns for the next two decades."

Read the entire story here   

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Capitol Hill Enviro-Calendar: March 13-14, 2014 


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Buchanan Ingersoll merging with Fowler White Boggs

Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney CEO Jack Barbour and Fowler White Boggs CEO Rhea Law.
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, Pittsburgh’s third-largest law firm, on Thursday said it is merging with Tampa, Fla.-based Fowler White Boggs,
Patty Tascarella reports in the Pittsburgh Business Times that the deal is expected to propel the firm into the nation’s 100 largest with 530 lawyers, and it takes Buchanan’s offices to 18. Financials were not disclosed.

This is the biggest deal for Buchanan since the 2006 combination of two of Pittsburgh’s biggest firms, Buchanan Ingersoll PC and Klett Rooney PC, still the largest transaction to occur in southwestern Pennsylvania.

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The firm will be known as Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney/Fowler White Boggs in Florida for a one-year transition, and Fowler CEO Rhea Law will serve as chairman of Buchanan’s Florida offices. Buchanan, which had Florida offices in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Tampa, will now have six sites in the state — adding Fort Myers, Jacksonville and Tallahassee. Miami is new territory for the Florida firm, which could not open an office in the city because of an agreement with a law firm with a similar name, Fowler White Burnett.

 Fowler White Boggs was a 90-lawyer firm with five offices, all in Florida. There’s site overlap in Fort Lauderdale and Tampa where both firms have offices.

Buchanan Ingersoll merging with Fowler White Boggs Read More »

Rosensweig now Of Counsel at Sokol Behot & Fiorenzo

Gary S. Rosensweig
Veteran environmental attorney Gary S. Rosensweig has been named Of Counsel at the New Jersey law firm Sokol, Behot and Fiorenzo and will be resident in the firm’s
Princeton office.
Rosensweig concentrates his practice in the areas of a environmental regulation, land use, permitting and compliance.
He was an original member of the staff of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission, serving from 1970-1982 in various executive and professional positions, including Director of Administration.

Rosensweig is a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association and was chair of its Land Use Law Section from 2008 to 2009. He also is a member of the association’s Institute of Municipal Attorneys and Solid Waste Attorneys Committee

Sokol Behot also named new associates–Michael R. Olszak and Christopher J. Turano. Both join the firm’s Litigation Practice Group  in Hackensack, NJ

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Rosensweig now Of Counsel at Sokol Behot & Fiorenzo Read More »

Woodwell to lead Pennsylvania Environmental Council

Davitt W. Woodwell

The Pennsylvania Environmental Council, a statewide environmental advocacy organization, today named
Davitt B. Woodwell to the position of president and chief executive officer, succeeding Paul M. King, who is retiring.


Woodwell also becomes a member of PEC’s board of directors. The transition is effective July 1. 


Woodwell assumes his statewide duties after twelve years as the vice president of its Western Pennsylvania office in Pittsburgh. He began his career as a staff attorney at PEC in 1993 and served in several positions during his tenure at PEC.  He took a leave of absence from PEC during 2000 and 2001 to serve as the first executive director of the Riverlife Task Force which developed a master plan for Pittsburgh’s waterfronts and proposed the creation of the new “Three Rivers Park.”  


Prior to joining PEC, he was dean of students at Kildonan School in Amenia, New York.
A graduate of both the University of Pittsburgh and its School of Law, Mr. Woodwell is a member of the DCNR Natural Gas Advisory Committee, the DCNR Ecosystem Management Advisory Committee and the Center for Sustainable Shale Development Standards and Evaluation Committee.  He also serves on the board of directors of Aspinwall Riverfront Park and the Steel City Rowing Club. 


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He is past chairman of the Citizen Advisory Panel to the Southwestern Pennsylvania Regional Planning Commission and was a member of the boards of directors of the Allegheny Land Trust, the MetEd/Penelec Sustainable Energy Fund, the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, the Regional Trails Corporation, the Steel Industry Heritage Corporation, and Friends of the Riverfront.


Woodwell also served as a member of the University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics Shale Gas Roundtable and the Allegheny County Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee. He also participated in the Department of Environmental Protection’s regulatory negotiation on the special protection waters program.  


He has been an adjunct professor of environmental law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and is a frequent speaker at environmental forums and conferences. Woodwell resides with his wife and two children in Indiana Township, Pennsylvania.

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Woodwell to lead Pennsylvania Environmental Council Read More »

Frustration over Fenimore Landfill boils over in Roxbury

The mayor and members of Roxbury Township Council, sharing the stage with New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection representatives, all became targets of residents’ frustration and anger Tuesday night over future plans for the foul-smelling Fenimore Landfill. 
The session started with consultant presentations on alternative methods for ending the odor problems at the dump and ended with shouting, protest and song.

Daily Record reporter William Westhoven captured it all in words and video.

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Frustration over Fenimore Landfill boils over in Roxbury Read More »

Capitol Hill Enviro-Calendar: March 13-14, 2014

Agriculture, Energy and Environment Policy and Legislation


THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2014

HOUSE AGRICULTURE

10:00 a.m. 1300 Longworth
Markup to consider Budget Views and Estimates Letter of the Committee on Agriculture for the agencies and programs under jurisdiction of the Committee for FY 2015; H.R. 935, the "Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2013"; and H. Con. Res. 86, Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the enactment of the Smith-Lever Act, which established the nationwide Cooperative Extension Service, 10 a.m., 1300 Longworth

HOUSE NATURAL RESOURCES
10:30 a.m. 1324 Longworth
Markup on the following legislation: H.R. 1192, to re-designate Mammoth Peak in Yosemite National Park as "Mount Jessie Benton Fremont"; H.R. 1501, the "Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument Preservation Act; H.R. 3222, the "Flushing Remonstrance Study Act; H.R. 3366, to provide for the release of the property interests retained by the United States in certain land conveyed in 1954 by the United States, acting through the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, to the State of Oregon for the establishment of the Hermiston Agriculture Research and Extension Center of Oregon State University in Hermiston, Oregon; and H.R. 4032, the "North Texas Invasive Species Barrier Act of 2014", 10:30 a.m., 1324 Longworth.

SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
Subcommittee on Emergency Management, Intergovernmental Affairs, and the District of Columbia
2:30 p.m. SD-342
To hold hearings to examine the President’s proposed budget request for fiscal year 2015 for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2:30 p.m., SD-342.

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FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 2014

HOUSE NATURAL RESOURCES
Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs
11:00 a.m. 1324 Longworth 202-225-0691
Hearing on discussion draft of "The Alaska Native Subsistence Co-Management Demonstration Act of 2014", 11 a.m., 1324 Longworth.

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Capitol Hill Enviro-Calendar: March 6, 2014  









Capitol Hill Enviro-Calendar: March 13-14, 2014 Read More »