Pennsylvania State Rep. Jesse White (Democrat from Cecil, PA) held a hearing yesterday in Washington, PA that took aim at practices by the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) over how they test (or don’t test) and report (or don’t report) on water supplies near active shale drilling locations. The DEP was invited to attend their own roasting but declined, calling White’s hearing political theater, unproductive, unprofessional and a waste of time (see PA DEP Not Attending Hearing on Water Testing Near Shale Drilling).
With representatives from anti-drilling organizations like Earthworks and PennFuture scheduled to testify at the hearing, it’s not surprising the DEP declined to show up just to be bullied. The session was apparently a 2 1/2 hour dump-on-the-DEP-fest:
