Despite concerns expressed by the oil and gas industry, protests and leasing delays have not significantly affected prices bid for federal onshore leases, the US Government Accountability Office said on Aug. 30.

Tullow Oil PLC, which announced a 152% half-year rise in profits, said it expects “some slow down in activity” in its effort to develop assets in the Lake Albert Rift basin due to an unresolved dispute over capital gains tax (CGT) between its former partner Heritage Oil PLC and the government of Uganda.

More robust science is clearly needed in federal offshore oil and gas planning, several witnesses told US President Barack Obama’s independent commission on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and offshore drilling on Aug. 25.

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, apparently spurred by recent difficulties between his government and Heritage Oil PLC over taxes, said no future oil or gas agreements are to be agreed to without his prior approval.

AEP, Duke, Southern and Xcel Energy Inc. are asking the U.S. Supreme Court, to reverse a lower court decision in a case that alleged the utilities' greenhouse gas emissions constituted a public nuisance under federal law.

We are all too familiar with George Santayana’s admonition that “Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat.” Of course Mark Twain thought that “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” In either case memory is short especially when it comes to making policy.