Fieldnotes

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A new watchdog group investigating the oil & gas industry. Sign up for our newsletter: http://fieldnotes.substack.com

ALT TEXT 1: A chart shows that 511 drilling permits have been approved in Converse County, Wyoming between January 2025 and April 2026.
ALT TEXT 1: In a June 3, 2025 email to Adam Suess, then Interior’s assistant secretary for land and minerals management, a Continental employee writes: “Continental requests that the blm complete the NEPA analysis on the Spurs D Pad without tiering to or otherwise using the Environmental Impact Statement prepared for the Converse County Oil and Gas Project.”
ALT TEXT: A text message sent on April 23, 2025 reads: “Hi Ashley, This is Sam with Continental Resources. Mr. Hamm told me he’s having a meeting in his hotel room at the skirvin when he gets in from the airport. I wanted to make sure your team had that info as well. Please let me know if that’s changed and what room I can take Mr. Hamm to when the Secretary arrives. Thanks, Sam”
A screenshot of a paragraph from the ProPublica story that says: The Trump administration official leading an effort to loosen rules on methane pollution was an unnamed author of key industry arguments against those same rules just four years ago when he was an oil and gas lobbyist.
Text: American Petroleum Institute SVP of Policy, Economics and Regulatory Affairs Dustin Meyer: “Today’s action appropriately ends the previous administration’s EV mandates, which effectively banned new gas-powered vehicles and represented a clear case of regulatory overreach at the expense of American consumers. We continue to support smart, effective federal regulation of emissions - including methane from oil and gas operations. Our focus now is working on durable policies that reduce emissions while meeting growing energy demand.”
A screenshot from API’s 2026 agenda reads: “Stop Extreme Climate Liability Policy. Protect U.S. energy producers and consumers from abusive state climate lawsuits and the expansion of climate ‘superfund’ policies that bypass Congress and threaten affordability.”
Quote from John B. McCuskey — West Virginia Attorney General: “And so you take $75 billion and multiply it by 13, 15, then it becomes an industry-destroying problem. That is unsustainable. If they have to pay $7 trillion over the next 15 years, there will be no more oil industries. There will be no more coal industries. There will be no more natural gas industries. So that is why this fight right now is so massively important. Because if we lose one, we lose them all.”
In a regulatory comment on EPA’s proposed endangerment finding rescission, API writes: “First, API believes EPA has authority to regulate GHGs under the CAA, but agrees with EPA’s proposal that the extent of its authority to regulate GHG emissions from motor vehicles under CAA § 202(a) is constrained by the lack of clear Congressional authorization to effectively mandate the production and sale of ZEVs. API agrees that the ‘major questions doctrine’ should be invoked for the purpose of concluding that EPA may not do so.”
A flyer with an image of the Ohio statehouse reads: “‘The New Wild West”: Inside the Oil & Gas industry’s Push for Carbon Capture & Storage in Ohio. Thursday, Nov. 6, 6 PM ET. Register: bit.ly/new-wild-west.” The logos for Buckeye Environmental Network, Ohio River Valley Institute, and Fieldnotes are along the bottom.
An email sent by Steve Pruett to University of Texas School of Law Professor Melinda E. Taylor, along with others, reads: “The quantities are all by EPA’s spreadsheet formulas except for the flared volumes, produced volumes and sold volumes which are metered. The high level of flaring was undersized gathering compression which is P66’s, our gas purchaser’s responsibility. Elevation provided P66 increasing gas forecasts but they failed to get the capital approved in time to expand their gathering compression facility. The plant had adequate capacity and all of or separation facilities were tied into the gathering system prior to the wells coming online.Well “venting” from HF (hydraulic fracturing) is improperly labeled by the EPA. We do not vent wells during flowback-that’s not legal without a permit and it is a frowned upon practice. Operators cannot do that in NM and permits should be hard to obtain in TX. We have a temporary flare until the new wells produce enough gas to flow to the production separation facility. If the facility is already in place with other wells, we do not flare the new wells at all as they are flowed to the prod. facility day one.I hope that helps. Not sure about other operators’ capabilities, but most operators do not file a subpart W report as they are either below 25,000 mt/yr of CO2e emissions, they don’t know what their emissions are as they don’t measure or complete the form, or they are simply out of compliance. Audit and enforcement is a big open question for the EPA and the state agencies like the TCEQ.”
Doug Burgum, Kristi Noem, and Dusty Johnson pose in front of the field during the 2025 Super Bowl.