PA House Swaps Gas-Linked Tax Credits for Solar in Rewritten Bill
On Monday, the Pennsylvania Democrat-controlled House took a tax bill the Senate sent over in June, gutted it, and sent back something very different. The new version has a 2-cent-per-kilowatt-hour fee on big electricity users (read: data centers), a grab bag of “clean energy” tax credits from Gov. Shapiro’s wish list, and a gas-fired power plant credit so wrapped in strings it may never pay out a dime. The House vote was 193-10. The Republican-controlled Senate had two voting days on the calendar before the Nov. 3 election: yesterday and today. The Republican-controlled Senate left the bill in its Rules Committee on Tuesday and instead passed 17 other measures. Today is its last scheduled day of voting before the Nov. 3 election. We don’t see any signs they will take up this bill today, but one never knows. Read More “PA House Swaps Gas-Linked Tax Credits for Solar in Rewritten Bill”
Here’s a head-scratcher for you. On Tuesday, the price of natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) took a tumble, slipping below $3 for the first time in more than two weeks. Yet on that very same day, the “spot” (cash) price for gas right here in Appalachia went UP—and one trading point jumped more than 20% in a single day. How does that happen? And should drillers and royalty owners break out the champagne? Let’s unpack it. 
The folks who count frac crews for a living say U.S. fracking should bounce back by next spring. The biggest frac company in the country is more cautious: Halliburton says it’s planning for a flat 2027 in North America, and any frac recovery is “purely upside.” So who’s right? Maybe both. And tucked inside the numbers is some very good news for the Marcellus/Utica. 
Halliburton, one of the two or three biggest frac providers working in the Marcellus/Utica, reported its third-quarter 2026 results yesterday. Most of the financial press focused on Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and a rosy 2027 forecast. The part M-U drillers (and the folks who supply them) should care about came out during the earnings call. Frac crews are getting scarce, customers are lining up for next year, and Halliburton is raising its prices. If you drill wells in Appalachia, your 2027 completion budget may need a bigger number in it. 
JKLM Energy, the private drilling company run by Buffalo Bills and Sabres owner Terry Pegula, has applied to drill a shale well in Salem Township, Westmoreland County, PA, next to the Totteridge Golf Course. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s story on the permit says the well would tap a “1,000-acre pool of methane.” Um, no. There is no underground lake of gas sitting beneath Salem and Hempfield townships, waiting for someone to stick a straw in it. What JKLM has put together is a pooled drilling unit. That’s a legal arrangement, not a geological feature. The difference matters a great deal to the 64 landowners who will someday be cashing royalty checks from this well. 
Ohio’s state-land leasing program has a new target. A driller (whose name is kept secret by state law, for now) has asked the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) to open about 618 acres under the Monroe Lake Wildlife Area in Monroe County to shale drilling. Public comments are open through Nov. 30. The twist this time? Because of the calendar, the final call may land on the desk of whoever wins next month’s race for governor. 
Back on Sept. 1, we told you Dominion Energy’s monster 3,000-megawatt (3 gigawatt) gas-fired power plant in Cumberland County, Virginia, had cleared its first hurdle when the county planning commission voted 5-1 to recommend approval (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: High schoolers hold fundraisers to plug oil and gas wells; Ike Morris, well-known West Virginia businessman and philanthropist, dies; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas futures extend decline on weather outlook; The AI policy debate suffers from a dangerous plague of vagueness; Greenhushing – climate loses its message; The permitting reform deal’s quiet endorsement; INTERNATIONAL: Oil slips as Iran talks fuel volatility; HSBC sees Hormuz becoming redundant in five years; UK government approves a natural gas project off Scotland despite environmental concerns. 
The Trump administration just put real money where its mouth is on the Constitution Pipeline. Yesterday the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it will spend up to $42 million in Defense Production Act (DPA) money to nudge Williams’ long-dead, now-revived 125-mile pipeline from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY closer to reality. The money won’t buy a single length of pipe—it pays for permitting and pre-construction work. And it doesn’t change the fact that New York and its Big Green allies are still fighting the project tooth and nail. But it sends a loud message: Washington now officially considers Constitution a national security asset. 
It’s official, or at least as official as these things get. America’s LNG export plants are drinking more natural gas than ever before. Two separate data trackers now say feedgas, the gas piped into LNG plants to be supercooled into a liquid and loaded onto ships, has set a new all-time high above 20 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day). NGI clocked 20.7 Bcf/d on Monday, the third straight day above its prior record. RBN Energy says feedgas has topped 20 Bcf/d for the first time ever. The milestone comes almost exactly a decade after the first LNG cargo left Cheniere’s Sabine Pass terminal in 2016. It also arrived just as a big chunk of Marcellus gas came back online after a leak on TC Energy’s Mountaineer XPress (MXP) pipeline in West Virginia. 
A new study from the Boston-based Fiscal Alliance Foundation puts a price tag on what New England’s pipeline shortage costs Massachusetts families. The study, done by Always On Energy Research, finds that Enbridge’s proposed Project Beacon, a 300 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) expansion of the Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline, would have saved Massachusetts ratepayers an average of $367 million per winter over the past seven winters. Even after paying their share of the pipeline’s cost, the average gas-heated household comes out ahead by $76 each winter, and small businesses by $622. 
Back on Sept. 2, we told you about Invenergy’s plan to build two big gas-fired power plants in Brillion, Wisconsin (see 
North Carolina’s Oil and Gas Commission is doing something it is required to do once every 10 years: review its entire rulebook for oil and gas drilling, including fracking. The Commission’s verdict so far is that every last rule is “necessary.” Case closed, right? Not if you’re an anti. Clean Water for North Carolina (CWFNC) is in full alarm mode, urging supporters to flood the Commission with “not one step back” comments before the November 9 deadline. Why the panic over rules that have never been used (not once) in 11 years? Follow the gas. A company wants to reopen an old vertical well in Lee County to power an AI data center. It would be the first commercial gas well in the state’s history.