4 Big Green Groups Pressure PA to Adopt Onerous New Drilling Regs
This Thursday the Pennsylvania Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) will take up the matter of approving recently proposed new drilling regulations from the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection. Conventional drillers in PA strong object to the new rules, Aricles 78 and 78a, and sued to stop the IRRC from reviewing them. They lost (see Judge Won’t Grant Request to Stop Adoption of New PA Drilling Regs). Key committees in both the PA House and Senate also object to the new rules (see PA House and Senate Panels Vote to Reject DEP’s New Drilling Regs). So who wants the new rules? You guessed it–radical green groups in the state committed to ending all oil and gas drilling are supporting the new rules, which is all you need to know the rules and just how onerous they are. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation – Pennsylvania Office, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, The Nature Conservancy – Pennsylvania Chapter, and the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy wrote a letter (below) asking the IRRC to approve the new regulations…
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We find nothing (NOTHING!) more repugnant than so-called Christians who used to worship the One True God who have forsaken their vows and instead now worship Mother Earth. They worship the creation instead of the Creator. Such is the case with a group of pastors from the United Church of Christ who will, this coming Sunday, preach sermons that paint fossil fuels as evil and should be “kept in the ground.” We urge parishioners at those churches to stay home this Sunday. In fact, all UCC members should just stay home this Sunday. Perhaps empty offering plates across the denomination will get the attention of the leadership and encourage them to forget this nonsense…
Three radical environmental groups well-known for lying about fracking and the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania–The Center for Coalfield Justice, the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Clean Air Council–are accusing Range Resources of intentionally avoiding “wealthy” neighborhoods and instead targeting low-income neighborhoods when drilling wells. The three groups make the claim that Terry Bossert, Range VP for legislative and regulatory affairs, told a meeting of the Pennsylvania Bar Institute that his company company tries to avoid siting shale gas wells near “big houses” where residents might have the financial resources to challenge drilling. Reps from the radical groups claim they heard him say this at the meeting. Range has responded that the comment was a joke–made in jest. The radical groups say it certainly didn’t seem that way to members of the audience. If the comment was not made in jest, it’s deeply troubling and, frankly, boneheaded. The problem is, the groups doing the accusing have lied so much about fracking and frackers, you simply can’t believe what they say. Is this a case of yet another ginned up lie by Big Green groups, or a case of the “boy who cried wolf” by those groups?…
MDN is strongly in favor of property rights. “You don’t tell me I can’t allow drilling a shale well or a pipeline–and I don’t tell you that you must allow it.” That’s always been our guiding philosophy. It pains us when pipeline companies use eminent domain to force landowners to allow a pipeline to be built. Having said that, it’s a pipeline! It’s underground. Farmers can plant crops over top of it after it’s in the ground. After a few years, you’re hard pressed to even tell where the pipeline is buried! We say if there’s widespread opposition to pipelines in a given community, don’t bother building it there. However, if there’s a handful of holdout landowners (often driven by global warming insanity), eminent domain may be justified. Life is complex. These issues are complex. Again, forcefully using eminent domain against any landowner–even the stupid anti-drilling ones–pains us. We don’t like it. But eminent domain is part of our laws, created to benefit wider society. We spotted an article about some Massachusetts landowners who equate opposing Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct pipeline with being patriotic, like the patriots from the original Boston Harbor Tea Party revolt. We had to laugh…
