Industrywide Issues

Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Former PA DEP Head Says Fracking Doesn’t Contaminate Aquifers
February 9, 2012February 9, 2012

Former PA Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger has been known to be a sharp critic of the drilling industry. He minces no words. If he believes drillers have caused a problem, he calls them out. Equally, he doesn’t shy away from defending hydraulic fracturing as the best, and safest, way of mining natural gas. He states outright that Marcellus fracking has never, not once, contaminated a water aquifer with chemicals.

Hanger is quoted extensively in an article on fracking hysteria in today’s New York Post:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA | Taxation

Key Dates/Events for New PA Impact Fee
February 9, 2012February 9, 2012

With the passage of the new Marcellus drilling law in Pennsylvania that establishes an impact fee, what happens next? The StateImpact website has a helpful timeline, which includes:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

New Marcellus Drilling Law Passes PA House, Awaits Gov’s Sig
February 9, 2012February 9, 2012

New Marcellus drilling legislation passed the Pennsylvania House yesterday by a vote of 101-90. The same measure passed the PA Senate earlier this week by a vote of 31-19. The only thing left before it becomes law is a signature by Gov. Tom Corbett, who said he looks forward to signing it. The new law will establish, for the first time in PA, a per-well-drilled impact fee. The fee is assessed on a sliding scale from $40,000 to $60,000 for the first year, decreasing each year for a 15-year period after that. The new law also tightens environmental regulations.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PennEnvironment Says Ban PA Drilling Based on Violations Data
February 9, 2012February 9, 2012

PennEnvironment released a study yesterday of what they call “environmental violations” by Marcellus Shale drillers in Pennsylvania for the past four years (a copy of the study is embedded below). It is a skewed analysis of citations issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) from 2008 to 2011. By PennEnvironment’s own admission, about one-third of the 3,355 DEP violations over the past four years are paperwork-related.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH

OH Attorney General Wants Drillers Who Pollute to Pay More
February 9, 2012February 9, 2012

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (Republican) said yesterday he wants tougher penalties for Utica and Marcellus Shale drillers who “pollute.”

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Chenango County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Libous, Martens Shoot Down Proposal for Fracking Test
February 8, 2012February 8, 2012

A group of Chenango County, NY officials have come up with a great idea: Use the abandoned Camp Pharsalia prison facility in a very rural part of the county (sits on 52 acres, owned by the state) to drill several test Marcellus and Utica Shale wells, and use it as a living laboratory with everyone involved—the state, the drilling industry, environmental groups and academe. In other words, let’s just test this out to see if there are any problems. The experiment would be a public-private partnership between the state and the drilling industry. Brilliant!

This forward-thinking group submitted their proposal to the state Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel in January:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

NY DEC Com. Joe Martens Now Says “If” Drilling is Allowed
February 8, 2012February 8, 2012

On Tuesday, New York Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Joe Martens gave testimony at a legislative budget hearing in Albany about the department’s staffing needs for 2012. The conversation turned to the DEC’s lack of a request for additional staffing that would be needed to oversee permits and drilling for shale gas should hydraulic fracturing finally, after four years, be allowed in the state. Once again, Martens’ language is very telling. His responses have moved away from “when” to “if” fracking will be allowed:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

MDN Prediction of Gasland Deux is Spot On
February 8, 2012February 8, 2012

Here’s an “I told you so.” Last week, MDN covered the story of the arrest of Gasland filmmaker Josh Fox at a Congressional hearing (see this MDN story). That episode gave rise to MDN’s weekly update this past Sunday, and the current MDN poll which asks if Gasland is truth or fiction.

In Sunday’s weekly update, MDN wrote:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Green Groups Split on Support for New PA Drilling Law
February 8, 2012February 8, 2012

New drilling legislation, including an impact fee, has passed the Pennsylvania Senate and debate began last night in the PA House. Debate will continue today. Passage is expected this week, perhaps as early as today. As MDN pointed out yesterday, the mostly anti-drilling organization Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) gave the new legislation a lukewarm, half-hearted endorsement as “the best thing we can get right now” (see this MDN story).

However, the mostly anti-drilling Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), which works closely with the PEC, gave the legislation a more positive endorsement, calling it “a tremendous step forward.” From the CBF press release:

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Industrywide Issues | M&A | Utica Shale

Utica Shale Deals Increasing, Marcellus Deals Decreasing
February 8, 2012February 8, 2012

A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers analyzing American energy mergers and transactions in 2011 worth more than $50 million found a dramatic increase in deals in the Utica Shale, and a dramatic decrease in deals in the Marcellus Shale.

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Broome County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Is NYS State Senator Tom Libous Reversing Course on Drilling?
February 7, 2012February 7, 2012

Are the political winds shifting in New York State among the politicians that have been staunch supporters of gas drilling? There’s perhaps no stronger supporter among elected politicians in Albany than Tom Libous, a powerful state senator from Binghamton. Sen. Libous is the deputy majority leader of the NYS Senate and a member of the DEC’s Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel (see this MDN story).

So when MDN spotted this quote by Sen. Libous in the New York Times in a story about how the review and approval process for fracking in the state is slowing down, it gives us great pause:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

U.S. Energy Independence is Happening – Because of Fracking
February 7, 2012February 7, 2012

One of the arguments often raised to support shale gas (and shale oil) drilling is that it will help America become energy independent. In a wide-ranging article on the topic, Bloomberg says that promise is being fulfilled—because of hydraulic fracturing. The article starts this way:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PEC’s Lukewarm Statement of Support for New PA Drilling Law
February 7, 2012February 7, 2012

The mostly anti-drilling organization Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) issued an interesting statement yesterday, commenting on new Marcellus drilling legislation that will likely be passed and signed into law this week in PA. Here is the entire press release:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

NY Fracking Advisory Panel Work Grinds to Halt
February 6, 2012February 6, 2012

As part of the process to enact new drilling regulations in New York State, Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens appointed a Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel last July to make recommendations to the DEC on how to oversee, monitor and enforce new shale drilling regulations in the state (see this MDN story for background). An important part of the panel’s duty is to craft a new fee structure to generate state revenue from a potential gas-drilling boom. But the work of the panel has now ground to halt.

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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

New Deal on Marcellus Shale Well Impact Fee in PA
February 6, 2012February 6, 2012

Pennsylvania legislators in both the PA House and Senate have debated for months on passage of new Marcellus drilling legislation. The main sticking point has been a local impact fee. Last week, Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican now in his second year in office, sent the Republican-controlled legislature a “hurry up and get it done” letter. Legislators were busy finalizing details over the weekend and a plan has now emerged. Likely to be voted on this week, the plan calls for the amount of the fee to vary depending on the rate of inflation and the commodity price of natural gas.

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Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Landfills | Pennsylvania

Scranton Landfill Applies for Permit to Mill Marcellus Cuttings
February 6, 2012February 6, 2012

For years, the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, a privately owned and operated municipal solid waste landfill located in Dunmore, PA (a Scranton suburb) has accepted already-processed cuttings, or rock waste, from Marcellus Shale drillers. The landfill filed a permit application in December with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that would allow it to accept unprocessed cuttings—cuttings in a non-solid form—and mix it with a lime-based material to solidify it. The process of mixing it is called milling.

The landfill uses milled cuttings as a soil replacement to cover the landfill at the end of each day.

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