"The Obama administration's long-awaited hydraulic fracturing rule will not take effect as scheduled today [Wednesday, June 24, 2015], thanks to a federal judge's eleventh-hour decision to stay the rule until August.

Judge Scott Skavdahl, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, issued the decision after more than six hours of courtroom arguments yesterday in Casper, where attorneys representing the oil and gas industry and affected states pushed for a preliminary injunction of the rule.

Skavdahl declined to issue an injunction but ordered that the rule's rollout be delayed until the Bureau of Land Management files its administrative record in the case and both sides explain how the record supports their arguments."

Ellen M. Gilmer reports for EnergyWire June 24, 2015. [2]