By JOHN P. TRETBAR

The Kansas Corporation Commission reports just 75 new intent-to-drill notices filed across the state during the month of March for a first-quarter total of 228. That compares to 422 at this time last year and 1,455 intents for the first quarter of 2013. Barton County saw just two new intents in March, for a total of nine in the first quarter, compared to 18 in the first quarter last year. Ellis County saw just one new intent filed in the first three months of the year, compared to 11 in the same period in 2018. Russell County, saw one last month and four for the first quarter. That’s an improvement over the one intent filed there during the first quarter of last year. Producers in Stafford County filed two last month and seven during the first quarter compared to ten during the first three months of 2018.

Independent Oil & Gas Service reports a nearly 18% increase in the Kansas rig count. There are 10 active rigs in the eastern half of the state, up six, and 23 west of Wichita, down one.

Baker Hughes reported 1,025 active drilling rigs across the U.S. Friday, an increase of 15 oil rigs and four seeking natural gas. The count in Texas was up eight. New Mexico gained three. Canada reports 68 active rigs, which is down 20 for the week.

Regulators approved 30 permits for drilling at new locations in Kansas over the last week. That’s 225 so far this year. There were 16 new permits in eastern Kansas, and 14 west of Wichita, including two in Barton County and two in in Ellis County.

Independent Oil & Gas Service reports 27 new well completions across the state, ten east of Wichita and 17 in Western Kansas, including one each in Ellis, Russell and Stafford counties. So far this year, operators have completed 447 wells across Kansas.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports domestic crude oil inventories increased for the second week in a row. For the week ending March 29 U.S. stockpiles rose 7.2 million barrels to 449.5 million barrels. That’s equal to the five-year seasonal average.

The government has reported new records for U.S. crude production for three weeks in a row. The latest report shows production of 12.182 million barrels per day for the week ending March 29. That’s up 93 thousand barrels per day over the week before, and more than 1.7 million more than last year at this time.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.8 million barrels per day for the week ending March 29, up by 223,000 barrels per day from the previous week. The four-week average is 12.1% less than the same period last year.

A non-profit Native American advocacy group on Friday filed yet another challenge to the permit allowing TransCanada to complete the Keystone pipeline. The latest permit suggests that the president’s authority to approve the pipeline is not subject to judicial review. But Bloomberg reports the new complaint filed in U.S. court in Montana argues that President Trump lacks authority to issue the permit, because the Constitution gives Congress the power to administer federal lands and regulate foreign commerce. According to the complaint, the project would pose “grave risks” to the climate, cultural resources, water resources, fish and wildlife, and human health and safety.

A federal judge says the President exceeded his authority by trying to overturn Obama-era restrictions on Arctic and offshore oil and gas drilling. In a ruling Friday, Judge Sharon Gleason reinstated the drilling ban, saying President Trump’s executive order last year exceeded his authority. Judge Gleason ruled that while sitting presidents have the power to ban development with an executive order, only Congress has the power to revoke such a ban instituted by other presidents. The bans involve about 98 percent of the Arctic coastal shelf in northern Alaska, and nearly six thousand square miles of underwater canyon complexes in the Atlantic Ocean, stretching from Virginia to the Canadian border.

North Dakota’s oil regulator plans to sue the state of Washington if it goes ahead with a proposal to reduce the volatility of Bakken crude oil transported by rail, saying it is not supported by science and would devalue the product. The Washington Senate voted last month to mandate a lower vapor pressure limit for Bakken crude shipped through the state by rail, aiming to limit fiery derailments. The Bismarck Tribune reports North Dakota regulators have requested state money to sue Washington if the legislation advances. About 200,000 barrels per day are carried by rail from North Dakota to refineries in Washington.

Continuing a nearly year-long string, the U.S. and Canada continue to increase reliance on railroads for delivery of petroleum and petroleum products. That’s according to the latest numbers from the Association of American Railroads. For the week ending March 30, domestic oil-by-rail shipments increased by nearly 28 percent over a year ago, and the year-to-date cumulative total was up 22 percent. Canada’s totals were up 13 percent for the week and 19 percent year-to-date.

Remember back in November, when there were five choices for governor, and a blank line where you could write in your neighbor or your dog or probably any other mammal for the state’s top job?

And remember that it came down essentially to one decision for Kansas voters: very conservative Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach or Democrat Sen. Laura Kelly?

Well, Kelly won, of course, by more than 50,000 votes, or 48% to 43% over Kobach.

The race essentially came down to Kobach, or the best-known candidate who wasn’t Kobach. Not being Kobach was a campaign asset — he was a lightning rod for folks who didn’t care for his voter rights/immigration policies and for those who feared he would reignite the Gov. Sam Brownback fiscal era.

But just being “not Kobach” didn’t really tell us anything about whether the “not Kobach” would be a competent and persuasive governor.

With the first adjournment of the Legislature last Friday, it looks like Kelly has been persuasive. She got the GOP-pushed tax-cut bill knocked down; her veto won’t be overridden. That’s victory No. 1.

And she got her school finance plan, worth about $90 million more a year for schools for the next four years, passed. That might, just might, be enough to convince the Kansas Supreme Court that the state is “adequately” funding public schools for our kids and grandkids. Not sure, depending on the court, but it could well be victory No. 2.

Victory No. 3? That would be expansion of Medicaid health care to more than 100,000 generally poor Kansans, their children, the disabled and others who can’t afford health care. No. 3 will be the target of the governor’s intense lobbying of legislators and their constituents during the next three weeks. Kelly and Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers will be crisscrossing the state during the Legislature’s spring break, with public events where they can try to get Kansans to tell their senators that they want Medicaid to be expanded.

The Senate has so far refused to hear the bill in committee, to consider voting it to the floor of the Senate where there are probably enough votes to pass it. It’s a different deal than two years ago. When the Legislature strongly passed Medicaid expansion, Gov. Brownback vetoed it, and either because of allegiance to the outgoing governor or maybe just because most Republicans were still referring to it as “Obamacare,” legislators couldn’t or didn’t override the veto.

That puts this year’s House-passed Medicaid bill, which the Senate’s anti-expansion leadership has specifically opposed, the target of Kelly and the health-care industry and Kansans without health coverage and lots of others in the next three weeks.

It’s the biggest test of the political power and the political strategy of the “not-Kobach” governor who got elected last November.

If successful, the effort by Kelly and others to get Medicaid expanded could reshape the Republican Party in Kansas.

It could mean that the hard-right conservativism, which got Kobach through the GOP primary election by about 400 votes over slightly more moderate then-Gov. Jeff Colyer, has seen its day. Could mean that the leaders of the Kansas House and Senate, who essentially set the rules for lawmakers and have their thumbs on the scale on nearly every vote taken, are losing horsepower.

Debate over important issues such as taxes, school finance and Medicaid expansion is a good thing. That’s how you find the upside and the downsides of major issues.

The outcome could tell us just how persuasive the new governor is…and might mean Republicans have to figure out how to deal with her…

Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com