Thank you for keeping us all informed, it is appreciated. I have sent an email to my Representative, Mr. Pete Flores, who is on the committee.
GREAT NEWS! The committee members heard your voice and passed HB 3838 out to the Senate floor with no amendments from the House version. The vote was unanimous, even by Birdwell, who was trying to add the TexOGA amendment.
Please contact your State Senator and ask them to vote for HB 3838 when it comes up for vote.
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I am pleased to say HB 3838 passed the Senate last night around midnight. It now heads to the governor’s desk for signature. Not wanting to take anything for granted, please contact Governor Abbott and urge him to sign the bill.
NARO Texas brought this issue to the forefront, helped draft the language, located and provided the witnesses for the House hearing, and drafted much of the one pagers and other supporting materials. We consider it a major step in helping stamp out a terrible sales practice that preys on smaller and elderly mineral owners.
However, we also had quality help. TIPRO and TLMA supported these efforts throughout, and were both instrumental in steering this through. TIPRO provided help through their lobbying efforts and publicized this cause with their members, as did TLMA. It likely would not have passed without their assistance. Steven Lord and other members of our Legislative Committee also deserve a big thank you.
We also appreciate those NARO members, and there were many, who contacted their legislators, as well as those who peruse this site, and responded to our requests for stories and witnesses to show the lawmakers what was going on.
THANK YOU!
The eminent domain reform bill, SB 421, died in the last days. The House and Senate passed different versions, and the sponsors, Craddick in the House, and Kolkhorst in the Senate, could not agree on compromise language.
Pipeline companies get to continue to run over land owners for the next two years, in other words.
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Thank you to all the folks from NARO who lobbied on our behalf!
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Texas RRC approved amendments to Rule 3.40 which controls how much acreage can be allocated to a horizontal well. The primary purpose of the amendments was to fix problems with assigning the same acreage due to stacked laterals.
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Texas RRC is revising the Form H-5 for test reports for Disposal and Injection wells.
The Ninth Circuit has ruled that dinosaur fossils are not “minerals” and belong to the surface owner.
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Continuing small earthquakes in parts of the Permian.
Do you need talking points in dealing with policymakers? Here are some good ones from Alex Epstein that were circulated by TIPRO.
Austin Court of Appeals rules that mineral interests bought at a tax foreclosure are not entitled to claim royalties that have been turned over to the state as unclaimed funds prior to the sale.
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Thanks for sharing, @Wade_Caldwell. Just to make sure my non-lawyer self is following the ruling: The reason the unclaimed royalties were not sold to the foreclosure buyer was because the buyer bought a “royalty interest” rather than mineral interest, meaning they did not buy rights to the proceeds of the estate prior to the effective date of the transaction but only future royalties?
"A royalty interest derives from the grantor’s mineral interest and is a non-possessory interest in minerals that may be separately alienated. Id. Although a royalty interest entitles its owner to a share of the proceeds of production from the mineral estate burdened by the royalty interest, see Plainsmen Trading Co. v. Crews, 898 S.W.2d 786, 789 (Tex. 1995), the proceeds of production and the royalty interest itself are not the same thing. The royalty interest is an interest in real property and the proceeds are personal property. "
I was under the impression if a mineral owner sold right they also sold suspended funds. This would still be case if they sold the mineral interest and not an ORRI or something, right?
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Tracy- It may have been a different result if it had been a mineral interest, but it largely depends on the wording in the deed, and you will note the court here spent a lot of time looking at the wording in the sheriff’s deed. Since many of the mineral buyers approach unsuspecting mineral owners with offers because they know a big amount of money is sitting in suspense or in unclaimed funds, as a mineral owner you need to: 1. immediately check unclaimed funds or for suspense funds if you get a legitimate unusually large offer; and 2. make sure you only sell the royalties accruing from the date of the deed forward.
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Virus relief package extends deadlines for green energy projects and includes $35 billion for energy research.
A court in Austin has ruled that the RRC violated the Open Meetings Act when it passed emergency extensions of deadlines to plug and abandon wells in May 2020. The court said the notice given was not specific enough as to what action was going to be taken.
The RRC is going to appeal. The RRC is not the most aggressive in enforcing these deadlines anyway.
Biden revoked the Keystone pipeline permit in his first day in office.
So I guess Alberta and its companies will just walk away from their massive investment in developing this pipeline and the tar sands oil fields, that trucks and rail cars will magically emit less carbon in transporting oil than a pipeline, and the lost construction jobs will magically reappear elsewhere?
I’m sorry, but just more empty political theatrics that will actually put more carbon in the air. The oil sands are already producing and the infrastructure is already in place. Making it more expensive to produce it will not stop its production. The companies will just file bankruptcy, reduce their cost structure, and continue. Contrary to other theatrics, like Trump predicting Mexico would pay for the wall, there is a good chance the American taxpayers are going to end up paying for the massive investments already made to build this pipeline after these companies finish with their claims through NAFTA 2 and in courts here.
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And Biden has frozen all federal drilling permits on federal lands for 60 days, probably so he can get his cabinet appointee approved. Because federal law may prevent Biden from stopping auctions of federal leases, he is mostly likely to try to stop drilling on federal lands by strangling it with regulation and delays in approvals.
Production on federal lands is 20% of U.S. production. So we are going to hand Russia, the Middle East, and Venezuela a free 20% market share of our oil use, and quickly tip us back to being an oil importer?
There are thousands of private owners of minerals and overrides on or adjacent to federal lands.
For those of you cheering thinking it means more demand for your private minerals, how can you be so short sighted? This harms our country economically, drives up prices, and does nothing to lessen carbon being put in the air. The bad precedent and damage s far more important here than any short term gain.
Forbes article about how Biden plan will devastate New Mexico O&G development. One look at the map of BLM lands in SE New Mexico tells you all you need to know. And many of the BLM lands have private ORRIs on them!
This permit ban was in Biden’s written platform on his website. Anyone now claiming surprise needs to roll back the rock they have been living under.
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Good Forbes article discussing the different sides of the flaring issue. When a boom creates pipeline capacity issues, which was the main cause of the flaring spike, there may be some merit to slowing permits to allow pipeline capacity to catch up. Since gas is expensive to process and transport, why are we not seeing more governmental efforts to encourage adoption of compressed natural gas in the areas where gas is produced, to convert trucking, bus, and other vehicle fleets to CNG?
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Here is the link for the Feedback form for the US Department of the Interior if you want to email your thoughts on the leasing ban and permitting “review”.
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