PIOGA Makes Legal Play to Stop Chapter 78a Regs from Taking Effect

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appealLast Friday the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association (PIOGA) filed a letter with the PA Joint House Senate Committee on Documents asking them to NOT publish the Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) final Chapter 78a Marcellus Drilling regulations, citing last week’s PA Supreme Court ruling on Act 13 as the basis. As MDN previously reported, the DEP plans to publish the final regulations in this week’s Oct. 8 Pennsylvania Bulletin (see PA’s New Article 78a Drilling Regs Go into Effect Oct 8). PIOGA previously sued asking the Commonwealth Court to block the new regulations based on the legal fact that key parts of Act 13, which Chapter 78a is based on, have been “enjoined” that prevent certain Chapter 78a provisions from being adopted in their current form. It kind of gets into the weeds with legal speak, but essentially PIOGA is (a) warning these agencies they should not publish the new regulations, which prevents the regs from going into effect, until the invalid provisions are removed, and (b) further litigating to keep the regulations stopped. Below is an overview of what’s happening, along with the letter sent by PIOGA to the Joint Committee, and a copy of the appeal filed to the Supreme Court…

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