Natural Gas Air Pollution Standards

On Tuesday EPA came out with new regulations for the oil and natural gas industry. The regulations require companies to capture natural gas that's emitted into the air during the completion and production process. Supposively capturing the additional gas, using existing technologies, will reduce the emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by 95 percent and make caputred gas available for sale. You can read more on this here.

Interagency Working Group For Fracking Oversight

This week President Obama ordered to create a panel with various government agencies as its members, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Energy Department and others. The goal of this new group is to revamp the natural gas industry regulations and coordinate federal oversight of hydraulic fracturing.

Thanks to the "controversial" fracking technique, the natural gas market has experience a strong increase in supply, but no adequate demand to offload it. As a result natural gas prices have recently hit new, $2 lows; we haven't seen these price levels in a decade. Many industry experts hope that the new regulations will promote greater use of natural gas, but there is some skepticism among them as well. After all, it's an election year, and President Obama has to make certain promises and commitments to get a shot at winning in November. Hopefully, the new oversight group will not get bogged down in red tape and become just another government program that sets out to simplify regulations, but falls short of its expectations.
Obama orders panel for fracking oversight; Aim is to ensure federal coordination

GM Introduced Natural Gas Powered Pickups

General Motors announced on March 5th, 2012 that it will offer bi-fuel versions of its 2013 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks that run either on gasoline or natural gas (more...).
I think it's a big step forward for the natural gas industry. As GM starts the trend, hopefully other car manufaturers will follow in its footsteps and introduce their versions of bi-fuel vehicles on the market.