An anti-drilling Democrat Congressman from Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District (Wilkes-Barre area), U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, continues a campaign targeting the Marcellus Shale industry for extinction–an industry that employs many of his constituents and benefits all of his constituents with lower natural gas and electricity prices. Cartwright and other anti-drilling members of Congress have recently changed strategies and are now attacking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hoping to slow down and stop new pipeline construction. Cartwright sent a letter to the Inspector General for the Dept. of Energy (under which FERC sits) asking the IG to instigate a witch hunt against FERC with the aim of getting FERC to slow down its already molasses-slow permitting process for new pipelines. Cartwright and other members of Congress (from New England) hope they can bully FERC into abandoning its stated charter to dispassionately and without political influence evaluate pipeline projects based solely on their environmental impact to the local communities through which they run…
