Litigation

Last 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…
Read More “PIOGA Makes Legal Play to Stop Chapter 78a Regs from Taking Effect”

Yesterday MDN reported that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has essentially gutted the rest of the Act 13 drilling law passed in 2012 (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against Act 13 Drilling Law, Yet Again). One of the four provisions in the law eviscerated in the most recently ruling deals with notifications following a spill of chemicals or frack wastewater. The Act 13 law provided for a mechanism (requirement) that local public water drinking systems be notified following a spill. Immediately. But the law did not provide for the same notification to owners of private water wells. Why was that? Was it a sweetheart deal with evil, nasty frackers who don’t care if they poison the water wells of nearby residents–interested only in money? Uh, no. The fact is Pennsylvania is one of the few states that does not regulate private water wells, so there is no registry, no way to know WHO to inform in case of a spill. How can you require a company to do something when there is no way to do it? Which raises this question: Do the Democrats on the Supreme Court who made this decision even understand the issue at all? Are they totally clueless?…
Read More “PA’s Supreme Court Orders Up the Impossible re Act 13”

Following up on yesterday’s Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision to eviscerate the rest of the 2012 Act 13 drilling law (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against Act 13 Drilling Law, Yet Again), there have been a number of articles and reactions to the decision. Most point out that the items struck down by the Supremes in their great wisdom were not really being followed or implemented after earlier court cases questioned Act 13. But some maintain there are aspects of this week’s decision that portend future trouble for the drilling industry, while others say it’s no big deal. Here’s one on each side of the issue…
Read More “PA Supreme Court’s Final Evisceration of Act 13 – Big Deal or Not?”

UPDATE: PIOGA sent MDN an exclusive statement about the case. They intend to appeal. Read PIOGA’s statement below…

In 2013 a RINO justice on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Chief Justice Ron Castille, sold out the Marcellus industry and joined with three Democrats on the state’s high court to overturn a large and important part of the newly minted Act 13 drilling law, in a case known as Robinson v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against State/Drillers in Act 13 Case). Part of the Act 13 law was left intact, but part of it, the part that directed local municipalities to craft zoning laws to include certain statewide uniform provisions concerning the location of oil and gas operations, was tossed (see What Does PA Supreme Court Decision on Act 13 Mean?). In June of this year, the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) argued a lawsuit against the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) based on the tossed Act 13 case. PIOGA argued that part of the Act 13 law–the part that granted the DEP sweeping power to consider proposed impacts a well might have on public and natural resources when considering whether or not to issue a permit–was no longer valid. PIOGA said those parts of the law are directly related and intertwined with the part struck down by the Supreme Court. In other words, Act 13 in its original form, as passed, said the DEP could consider impacts on public and natural resources as part of the decisional process for issuing permits, but the Supremes struck down that part of the decisional process because they said it could not be implemented consistent with Act 13’s intent. PIOGA’s lawsuit pointed out that public natural resources were still protected by other laws operators must comply with and that the Supreme Court’s invalidation of Section 3215(c) meant that DEP ould no longer impose conditions in permits related to these other laws. A Commonwealth Court in PA ruled yesterday against PIOGA’s argument (full copy of the ruling embedded below). In essence, the court is picking and choosing which parts of a law that was duly passed it wants to have enforced, and the parts it doesn’t like it willy nilly tosses, which is bass ackwards. DEP must obey the Supreme Court’s rulings just as everyone does, but not for now courtesy of the Commonwealth Court…
Read More “PIOGA Loses Court Case Challenging PA DEP Standards for Permits”