American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2017 - 128

Eagle Ford Shale, he added. Altogether,
EnerVest controls about 7 million acres,
99 percent of which is held by production.
Companywide, gas production is about 1
billion cubic feet a day, Walker said.
"We are very bullish on gas right
now," he commented.
Assessing The President
Addressing TIPRO on the afternoon
of Feb. 27, former U.S. Vice President
Dick Cheney said he supported Donald
Trump in the general election, in keeping
with his commitment to back the GOP's
presidential nominee. He said the new
president was "right on energy" and for
lifting regulatory burdens that impeded
economic progress for oil and gas operators
as well as industry in general.
"I generally have been pleased with
the overall direction he has taken, and I
think he has made good personnel choices," Cheney said during a question and
answer session.
He acknowledged that Trump faced
unprecedented challenges, including a
more aggressive Russia, and was wise to
strengthen the U.S. military.
The United States' proper response to
Russian President Vladimir Putin is to
use U.S. energy supplies more aggressively, including natural gas exports to
Europe, Cheney insisted.
While Trump is pushing for other North
Atlantic Treaty Organization members to
pay more for NATO's security needs, the
United States must maintain a strong
posture in the eyes of Russia, China, the
Islamic State and others, he said.
Cheney also advised TIPRO about his

work on the board of WellAware, which
combines software and hardware systems
to monitor and provide data on oil and
gas production, midstream operations,
and chemical management to help companies immediately address problems and
otherwise gain operating efficiencies and
reduce costs. Other board members include
former TIPRO Chairman Raymond Welder
III, who accompanied Cheney in the Qand-A session.
Chemical providers can monitor injection rates remotely to make sure wells
are being treated properly, can reduce
chemical downtime by 20 percent, and
can be alerted immediately when problems
arise, said Cheney, who cited several
companies that had cut expenses as a
result of deploying the product.
"Our pumpers and gaugers will be
notified immediately if a piece of equipment goes down, and they can collaborate
with service providers and share the same
data," Cheney said.
In December, WellAware launched the
WellAware Integrated Radio and ControllerTM for oil and gas producers, as
well as a global distribution collaboration
with Landmark, a Halliburton business
line and upstream software provider, reported Cheney, who served as Halliburton's
CEO prior to becoming George W. Bush's
vice president.
The partnership offers data collection
as a service within Landmark's DecisionSpace® Production 365 platform,
which provides clients with a complete
offering to collect production data from
the field and integrate them into the DecisionSpace platform, Cheney said.

TIPRO President Ed Longanecker (left) and immediate past-Chairman Raymond Welder III
(right) ﬂank former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney during TIPRO's annual meeting, Feb.
27-March 1 in Austin. Cheney assessed the performance of President Donald Trump and
recounted his four decades of public service in remarks during the convention.

128 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

After watching much of the oil and
gas industry's technological progress from
outside during his tenure as vice president,
Cheney said he found his work with
WellAware rewarding.
The former vice president recounted
four decades of public life that included
service in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and six terms in Congress. He
also served as defense secretary in the
George H.W. Bush administration.
Citizen Lawsuits
With the election of Donald Trump
dramatically changing the regulatory landscape in Washington, Suzanne Murray, a
partner at Haynes and Boone LLP and
former counsel at Region VI of the Environmental Protection Agency, advised
TIPRO that environmentalists were regrouping and likely would continue to
challenge the industry by bringing citizen
lawsuits in attempts to force EPA to
promulgate regulations.
Those lawsuits will be similar to the
sue-and-settle action, Background Environmental Integrity Project et al v. McCarthy, which environmentalists brought
last August in the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia, she said. In
that case, Murray recalled, plaintiffs wanted to force EPA to reclassify oil and gas
waste as hazardous under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act.
The plaintiffs argued that RCRA required the agency to re-evaluate whether
appropriate regulations were in place
every five years, she explained.
"Citizen lawsuits have been a very effective tool for groups to get the EPA to
promulgate regulations because they are
right: The statute says the agency has to
look at it every five years," Murray said.
However, in Background Environmental
Integrity Project, in which Haynes and
Boone filed TIPRO's unsuccessful attempt
to intervene, the plaintiffs wanted EPA
to create regulations to limit hydraulic
fracturing in addition to lifting the oil
and gas waste exemption, Murray reviewed.
Instead, she said, the court gave EPA
the choice to issue a regulation within
four years or find that a regulation wasn't
necessary.
"That is where we are today. I think it
presents an opportunity to tell EPA it
doesn't need to make a rule by acting
now to make it clear that the states' programs satisfy the statutory requirements
under RCRA," Murray said.
Congress is utilizing the Congressional
Review Act, which allows lawmakers to
introduce joint resolutions to vacate regulations issued fewer than 60 days previously,
with annulments becoming effective if the

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