The N.C. Attorney General today issued a lengthy list of warnings and recommendations designed to protect the public from being exploited by the fracking industry.

The AG is urging the state legislature to approve the proposed safeguards if lawmakers proceed with legalizing fracking in this state, as some are vowing to do.

The provisions are intended to protect the public from high-pressure sales tactics, adverse financial impacts, property damage and other risks the public is typically exposed to but unaware of.

Or think of it as the Surgeon General's warning label for fracking: "There are risks to neighbors, communities and the State itself," the AG's report declares.

The state Attorney General's office estimates that around 400 to 500 homes have been sold in North Carolina in recent years stripped of legal rights to drill and frack for natural gas under the properties.

The homebuilder, D.R. Horton, this week notified state officials it would return those rights to any homeowner who requests it. The company did an about-face amid a public outcry and twin state reviews of its practice. Many of the affected homes were sold throughout the Triangle.

D.R. Horton's policies of systematically stripping drilling rights is under review by the state AG's Consumer Protection Division and by the N.C. Real Estate Commission. Both agencies are now tracking the builder's offer to return mineral rights to customers who make the request.

At this point it remains unclear how long the offer to return mineral rights will be available and how many D.R. Horton customers are aware of it.

Investor, financier and hedge fund manager T. Boone Pickens is giving a Texas-sized cheer to North Carolina for the Old North State's emerging energy policies.

Pickens, who chairs BP Capital Management, has issued an enthusiastic blurb in support of a package of three energy bills that would legalize fracking in this state and urge drilling off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. The bills were passed Wednesday by a state Senate committee on energy policy and will be introduced before the General Assembly in May.

To be precise, Pickens lauded one provision in the sweeping legislative package that would reshape the state's political landscape with new boards, taks forces and a smorgasbord of requirements. What Pickens liked is the proposed "aggressive move to move the state's school buses off OPEC oil/diesel/gasoline and onto domestic natural gas."

Claim: "(Fracking) would only bring to the state at most about 100 jobs."

Speaker: Bill Faison at Democratic gubernatorial debate Monday

PowerSecure International, the Wake Forest energy services company, announced Monday that it has won a multi-million dollar contract to build electrical transmission lines to support new oil and gas production sites.

PowerSecure will do the work on behalf of an unnamed utility. The Morrisville company didn't put a figure on the contract, saying only that it is for several million dollars of transmission and design work. The work is expected to be completed by the middle of the year.

The revenue will be included as part of the company's fourth quarter earnings, which are to be released Thursday.

Experts on mineral rights and other aspects of energy exploration will discuss the ins and outs of negotiating land leases tonight at a workshop in Durham.

The fracking event will be held at 6 p.m. at the Durham County Extension Office at 721 Foster Street. It's free to the public.

Fracking refers to hydraulic fracturing, a technology used in conjunction with horizontal drilling to tap into underground natural gas deposits trapped in shale rock formations. North Carolina is believed to have about 40 years of shale gas around Lee, Chatham, Moore and other central counties.

Such drilling practices are not currently legal in this state but they are likely to be debated by the state legislature.

Speakers will discuss legal considerations and other factors to consider when negotiating a lease, among other related topics.

Falling natural gas prices have prompted PSNC Energy, the Triangle's natural gas utility, to request a rate decrease that will shave nearly $5 a month from a typical residential heating bill.

PSNC today asked the N.C. Utilities Commission for permission to reduce its rate from 95 cents a therm to 90 cents. A therm is a unit of heat measure.

The change would reduce a typical household bill, based on 94 therms of usage, from $89.30 to $84.60. The request is almost certain to be approved by the Utilities Commission and would be effective Feb. 1.

PSNC has about 485,000 natural gas customers in the state. About 40 percent of Triangle households use natural gas for heating and cooking, the second most common source after electricity.

Natural gas prices have decreased dramatically since the recession as U.S. reserves increase and demand remains slack. Utilities are required by state law to negotiate the best fuel prices for their customers and are not allowed to profit on fuel costs. Natural gas utilities can request rate adjustments once a month to reflect wholesale gas prices,

State officials working on a study of the benefits and risks of natural gas exploration in North Carolina expect to have a draft report ready in March, in time for two public hearings planned in the Triangle on the topic of gas drilling.

Drilling for natural gas trapped in prehistoric shale rock formations is already proving divisive and controversial, even though "fracking" technology is not legal in North Carolina at this time. Critics say fracking contaminates drinking water supplies and causes other environmental risks, while supporters are pushing to tap into the nation's vast reserves of a clean-burning domestic resource as a way of offsetting dirty coal and imported oil.

North Carolina is estimated to have about 40 years of natural gas supply trapped less than a mile below Lee, Moore and Chatham counties and surrounding areas. The U.S. Geological Survey is expected to issue more sophisticated estimates of this state's reserve, but the actual quantity won't be known until energy companies start drilling.

A natural gas executive who graduated from Duke University blasts his alma mater's research linking his industry's gas drilling to the contamination of drinking water.

Writing in the November-December issue of Duke Magazine, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon not only challenges Duke scientists but also decries the university's liberal agenda and questions the academic integrity of Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

"The relentless and ongoing politicization of education, teaching and research at Duke is sad and lessens the institution's relevance and value for all Duke alumni -- past, present, and future," McClendon wrote.

The state's ongoing study of the pros and cons of "fracking" will not merely be a neutral exercise in fact-gathering. In response to public demand, the study will pick a side -- either for or against the controversial method of exploring natural gas.

The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources announced the expanded scope of the study today, several months into conducting research. The likely outcome will be that the study, which was to get to the truth of the matter, will be dismissed as biased by whoever disagrees with its conclusions.

The agency is conducting the study for the state legislature to help lawmakers determine whether they should legalize "fracking" in this state. The study is expected to be ready by May 1, in time for the 2012 legislative session.

"Fracking" refers to the hydraulic fracturing technology used to release gas trapped in prehistoric shale rock formations underground. "Fracking" is used in conjunction with horizontal drilling, a practice that's also not allowed in this state at this time.