All kinds of information about oil, gas, electricity, coal and other forms of energy used in the U.S. are posted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. For other countries, see Europe's Energy Portal.
U.S. Federal and state energy policy developments are covered extensively by a newsletter called Greenwire, while the Environment & Energy Daily covers energy issues before the U.S. Congress. Both are available from E&E Publishing. For more journals, see the "Periodicals" section of Lauren Schroeder's Researching Oil & Gas Law.
The University of Colorado Law School posts a database of International Energy Treaties.
Leasing: A natural resource "lease" is a contract between a landowner and a company that give the company the right to enter the land, explore for the resource, remove it and produce it. Leases granted by the U.S. Federal government are handled by three Bureaus within the department of the interior - the Bureau of Land Management (leases on Federal land), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement, formerly the Mineral Management Service (offshore leasing) and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (leasing on Indian lands).
Natural Gas: See "Oil and Natural Gas," below.
A. Nuclear Energy
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulates the production of nuclear energy in the U.S., and the NRC website provides most current NRC materials. A site called INLN catalogs online links to catalogs for national nuclear energy libraries and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Maintenance and Operations Contracts: The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration contracts out the maintenance and operations of various nuclear facilities to private companies. These M&O contracts are public documents and can be found on the M&O Support Department page of the NNSA website.
Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statements: The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (P.L. 95-242; 42 U.S.C. §2153 et seq.) requires the enactment of a non-proliferation agreement/treaty before there can be any nuclear cooperation between the U.S. (and a U.S. companies) and a foreign country (or company). The agreement must be submitted to Congress by the president with a transmittal letter and a Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement (NPAS). The NPAS is drafted by the State Department. NPAS's can be classified or not, and they always include a classified Annex. Many non-classified NPAS's are posted on the internet and can be found with a good search engine; otherwise, they are published in the Serial Set (discussed in "Congressional Reports") along with the President's transmittal letter. The President's transmittal letter is also published in the Public Papers of the President (see "Presidential Materials"). The agreements are found with other treaties (see "Treaties - U.S.") For more information, see the GAO's Nuclear Cooperation with Other Countries: A Primer.
NUREGs: NUREGs are a series of Regulatory and Technical Reports by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. There are several kind including "Publications by NRC staff" (cited as NUREG-xxxx), "Publications by NRC contractors" (NUREG/CR-xxxx), "Publications resulting from international agreements" (NUREG/IA-xxxx), "Brochures by NRC staff" (NUREG/BR-xxxx and "Conference Proceedings" (NUREG/CP-xxxx).
Free online options: Some NUREGs are available through the NUREG-Series Publications page of the NRC website or the NRC's Agency wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). Both pages have search boxes, but if that doesn't work try the master search on the NRC's Search Results page. Also, some NUREGS are available free through the Information Bridge. And it can't hurt to look around with a good search engine to see if someone else has posted a particular NUREG on their website.
Fee-based online: If you can't find a free copy, NUREGs can be purchased in PDF format from NTIS. I bought one for about $25 in 2012.
Depository Libraries: NUREGs are sold by the GPO as individual government documents and collected by Federal Depository Libraries; use WorldCat to find libraries holding the one(s) you need.
B. Oil and Natural Gas:
Baker Hughes posts a "Rig Count" page that tell the number of oil well in the U.S., Canada, other countries and individual states. The Oil & Gas Journal compiles a number of useful surveys, including the OGJ 150 and OGJ 100, which provide basic data on the largest U.S. and foreign oil and gas companies including assets, revenues, income, capital and exploratory expenditures, production and reserves. The OGJ 150/100 generally appears in the October print issue and is available for subscribers online with the other Surveys. For individual companies, proved reserves (also called "proven reserves") are generally reported in the Annual Report and/or 10-K.
The Oil & Gas Journal also publishes industry statistics.
In Researching Oil & Gas Law, Lauren Schroeder lists the following U.S. treatises:
- American Gas Association, Regulation of the Gas Industry
- Earl A. Brown, The Law of Oil and Gas Leases
- Kramer & Martin, The Law of Pooling and Unitization
- Kramer & Martin (originally Williams & Meyers) Oil and Gas Law
Eugene O. Kuntz, A Treatise on the Law of Oil and Gas
- Rocky Mountain Mineral Foundation, Law of Federal Oil and Gas Leases
- W.L. Summers, The Law of Oil and Gas