PA Lawmakers Pass Bill to Allow Shale Drilling at Colleges
Coming soon to a Pennsylvania college campus near you: Marcellus Shale drilling? Yep.
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Technology will Make Fracking Greener – Eventually
Keith Schaefer, editor of the Oil & Gas Investments Bulletin, gave a wide-ranging interview to The Energy Report yesterday. He talks about the price of natural gas and oil in the U.S., fracking technology and more. It’s an excellent interview and worth your time to read.
Here’s one small excerpt on how, when and why fracking leads to lower crude oil prices in the U.S.:
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide NY | Statewide PA | Wayne County
Federal Judge Throws Out NY AG’s Lawsuit Against DRBC
Big news for landowners living in the Delaware River Basin area, especially for those in Wayne County, PA who want to see drilling in the Marcellus go forward: A federal judge has thrown out the lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman that sought to force the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to conduct a “fuller assessment” of the potential impacts of shale gas drilling on New York City’s water supply before allowing any shale gas drilling in the basin.Such an assessment would have meant years of additional studies and delays, especially harmful to landowners in Pennsylvania who happen to live in the DRBC’s jurisdiction and have seen no drilling for the past five years while their neighbors all around them have. This is a victory not only for landowners, but the DRBC itself, fighting the lawsuit.
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Bradford County | Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | New York | Pennsylvania | Statewide NY
Bradford County, PA Landowners – $160M in Royalties (So Far)
Listen up New York State: Bradford County, which borders Tioga and Chemung counties in New York, has generated $160 million in natural gas royalty payments to landowners—so far. There’s much more to come.
Here’s the low-down on drilling in Bradford County:
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NY Gov. Cuomo Responds to the ‘When’ Question
Although the ongoing moratorium on shale gas drilling in New York State feels like it exited being a Greek tragedy and entered being a Klingon opera a long time ago, MDN feels duty-bound to deliver any small shred of news we come across that impacts the prospects of New York drilling. After all, we live in New York!
Yesterday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo had a few comments for reporters about the “when” question:
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Muskingum Watershed Moves Forward with Water Sales to Drillers
There’s been a change in position at the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD), a large watershed located in Ohio. MDN reported earlier this year that the MWCD was making moves to sell water from some of it’s vast supply to Utica Shale drillers who have a number of active drilling rigs in the area. Almost as soon as the news was announced, however, the board of the MWCD issued a press release saying they would not sell any more water (other than a deal already done) until a comprehensive study was completed by the U.S. Geological Survey “later this year” on how such water sales might impact the watershed (see this MDN story for background).
The MWCD has reversed its decision (again). The USGS survey is not yet done, but the MWCD is now going to sell water to drillers—but only for a limited time. Here’s the details:
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Michigan | New York | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide MI | Statewide NY | Statewide OH | Statewide PA
NRDC Launches Lawyers to Oppose Fracking in 5 States
You have to say one thing about the increasingly shrill Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)—they don’t let an issue they can demagogue for money go to waste. For the NRDC, there’s money to be made in opposing fracking. Warning to the drilling industry: The NRDC is well-funded and is gunning for you. Their latest offensive? They’ve created something called the Community Fracking Defense Project whereby they’ll launch lawyers out into any township across New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina to assist that town in opposing fracking. (Sorry West Virginia, you aren’t important enough for the NRDC to spend time and money on.)
The fight over fracking is about to go very local, and get very nasty, with the NRDC pumping millions into the effort to make mischief.
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NY DEC Com. Martens: Fox in Henhouse, or Crazy Like a Fox?
On Friday, MDN told you about the latest development in the ongoing Greek tragedy called the New York State moratorium on fracking (see this MDN story). Our take was that Joe Martens’ latest announcement that he has asked NYS Health Commissioner Nirav Shah to conduct a “health impact analysis” of hydraulic fracturing before the DEC will release new drilling rules was a bad sign that fracking in New York will be seriously delayed yet again—well into 2013.However, landowner groups, led by the Joint Landowner Coalition of New York (the “JLCNY,” representing over 77,000 individual landowners) don’t see it the same way. They believe the path Martens chose in having Nirav Shah do a limited review and not a wide ranging so-called “independent” review—something being pushed by anti-drillers—means the review will not take long and will do a lot to address public concerns over the practice of fracking. The JLCNY supports Martens’ decision.
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AP Erroneously Says Government Discovered Fracking
Every now and again, the anti-drilling side trots out the storyline that the federal government should be given the credit for “discovering” fracking because the government, through various government agencies, contributed research and funding along the way. The latest installment of that meme is an AP story that starts this way:
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What Will a NY Fracking Health Study Actually Study?
Just what do anti-drilling groups in New York that want a “health impact study” propose to study? How exactly do they think fracking may impact the health of New Yorkers, especially since chemicals don’t leak up to the surface as they sometimes (erroneously) claim? Get this: they want to study potential links between fracking and STDs, homelessness and lack of exercise. Yeah, certifiable wackos.
From an unattributed opinion piece in the New York Daily News (which is not a pro-fracking newspaper):
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Cornell President Says Fracking Genie is Out of the Bottle
David J. Skorton, president of Cornell University, and Glenn C. Altschuler, vice president for University Relations at Cornell, jointly penned an opinion piece for Forbes magazine that talks about the role of universities in the fracking debate. Cornell is home to professors Robert Howarth and Tony Ingraffea who have both made a cottage industry out of bashing natural gas drilling and fracking (and infamously still maintain natural gas pollutes more than coal).
Here is the (eye-popping) concluding statement from Cornell’s president about fracking:
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Questerre Energy Points Out Quebec’s Hypocrisy on Fracking
Quebec, Canada currently has a moratorium in place on fracking shale for oil and natural gas, similar to New York State. They were due to consider lifting the ban in 2014 with recommendations from a study on how to proceed with fracking, but those hopes were pretty much destroyed last week when a member of the new “separatist” government in Quebec, Natural Resource Minister Martine Ouellet, said the government will not lift the ban any time soon and added she believes fracking cannot ever be done safely.
Part of the Utica Shale underlies Quebec, which is why this is a story of interest to MDN. Questerre Energy, a large Canadian driller, issued a press release about the Quebec situation, saying continuance of the moratorium will not affect them—but they are disappointed in Ouellet’s position. They also say, in their polite Canadian way, that Quebec is hypocritical because they import a lot of shale gas from Western Canada—gas created using the very same “unsafe” fracking technology:
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NJ Gov. Christie Vetoes Frack Wastewater Ban Bill
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a bill on Friday that would have banned Marcellus Shale wastewater from being treated or disposed of in New Jersey. Environmentalist groups, led by the Sierra Club, have said they’ll try and get an override of his veto in the state legislature—something that hasn’t happened since Christie has been in office.
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Global Frackdown Protest was a Global Flop
Depending on your news source, the “Global Frackdown” series of events held on Saturday, Sept. 22 was supposedly happening in “more than 100 cities” across the globe, or “about 150 cities.” Take your pick. Either way, the Global Frackdown was a Global Flop.
Did anyone, anywhere actually see protesters on Saturday? Does anyone have a photo of a huge crowd protesting on Saturday? Did anyone count the actual number of locations with two or more protesters? No. And MDN believes the event was held in far fewer than 100 locations, and attended by far fewer than the so-called “thousands” who were said to have assembled to protest fracking. In fact, we believe there were more pro-drillers at a recent event in rural Upstate New York than showed up for the collective Global Frackdown (see this MDN story).
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Bad to Worse in NY: Martens Invokes Another Delay for SGEIS
The news in New York on the future of drilling has just gone from bad to worse. True to form, and as MDN has been telling your for more than a year now, Joe Martens—the Commissioner of New York’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC)—has once again delayed the release of new drilling rules for the state. As near as MDN can tell, the delay is indefinite—certainly until well into 2013.Issuing a press release yesterday (read it below), Martens says he’s requested NYS Health Commissioner Nirav Shah to conduct a “health impact analysis” of hydraulic fracturing before the DEC will release new drilling rules. Here’s the (sad, maddening, tragic) press statement from fox-in-henhouse Martens:
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NRDC Tries to Peddle Anti-Fracking Message in Ohio
Ohioans beware: The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an anti-drilling group, is attempting to export their “ban fracking” message from New York to Ohio.
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Big news for landowners living in the Delaware River Basin area, especially for those in Wayne County, PA who want to see drilling in the Marcellus go forward: A federal judge has thrown out the lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman that sought to force the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to conduct a “fuller assessment” of the potential impacts of shale gas drilling on New York City’s water supply before allowing any shale gas drilling in the basin.
On Friday, MDN told you about the latest development in the ongoing Greek tragedy called the New York State moratorium on fracking (
The news in New York on the future of drilling has just gone from bad to worse. True to form, and as MDN has been telling your for more than a year now, Joe Martens—the Commissioner of New York’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC)—has once again delayed the release of new drilling rules for the state. As near as MDN can tell, the delay is indefinite—certainly until well into 2013.