Will DEP Sec Quigley Intentionally Miss Deadline for New Drilling Regs?
Last week MDN gave you the heads up that new “acting” Sec. of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley, is already signaling his desire to clamp down on the Marcellus industry. He mass-fired the members of the Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board (OGTAB)–something no other governor and head of the DEP has done in living memory (see Why did PA DEP Acting Sec Quigley Mass Fired Gas Advisory Board?). Scott Perry, deputy secretary of the DEP, says long-awaited new regulations formulated after the Act 13 law was passed in 2012 will not be delayed because of the mass firings on the OGTAB. Others, however, are not so sure. We still see tremors of a coming earthquake in which Wolf/Quigley screw around and miss the deadline (intentionally) and then rewrite the new regulations once again, to suit their own proclivities on drilling…
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There is an effort underway–a serious effort–for towns along the border in some upstate New York counties to secede from New York State and join Pennsylvania. Why? Because of New York’s ban on hydraulic fracturing. And no, this is not an early April Fool’s joke. MDN first started hearing of secession talk shortly after Gov. Cuomo’s disgraceful cabinet meeting in which he let bootlickers Howard Zucker (State Health Commissioner) and Joe Martens (DEC Commissioner) take the fall for a ban on fracking–a ban Cuomo himself wanted. We saw some signs and heard a few mentions of secession and chalked it up to understandably high emotions over Cuomo stealing away their future. But it seems it’s not just so much hot air. A group called the Upstate New York Towns Association has done some polling and found 15 towns along the border area of NY are ready to make the leap. There are, however, some major hurdles in the way…
Cases before the high courts of both New York and Pennsylvania in the past year have ruled that local municipalities can control oil and gas drilling within their borders–so-called “home rule” statutes. In the case of NY the high court went berserk and said towns can actually ban such drilling, which of course strips away private property rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. In PA it was a little better, but not much. PA’s high court gutted provisions in the state’s Act 13 law making for a crazy-quilt patchwork of local zoning regulations that PA’s drillers must now navigate through. One state’s high court, however, has gotten it right. Yesterday the Ohio Supreme Court issued its long awaited ruling in the Munroe Falls v Beck Energy case (for background, see 
Like a bad penny that keeps turning up, a forced pooling law in West Virginia keeps returning. Every year from 2009-2014 forced pooling legislation has been introduced, and ultimately defeated, in the WV legislature. We’ve covered the issue for years. Once again a new bill has popped up. House Bill (HB) 2688 was introduced by Delegate Lynwood Ireland (Chairman of the House Energy Committee) and co-sponsored by Delegates William Anderson (Speaker Pro-Tempore) and George Ambler. All three are Republicans. The bill has already passed the House Energy Committee and currently sits with the House Judiciary Committee for review. It may move fast or it may move slowly. Proponents of the bill say, in essence, this time the bill is different. There are compromises and provisions to protect both surface and sub-surface landowners. The interesting thing to MDN is that the West Virginia Royalty Owners Association is now on board and supporting the bill. Below we tackle this thorny issue once again. We have the full text of the bill as proposed, along with reaction to it, and our own thoughts…