Regulation

Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Congressman Takes EPA’s Jackson to Task over Fracking
June 11, 2012June 11, 2012

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology has a subcommittee called the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. It’s chaired by Congressman Andy Harris (R-MD). Last week Congressman Harris sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson. The purpose of the letter? Essentially it puts Ms. Jackson on notice that Congress is tired of her agency’s witch hunt with respect to hydraulic fracturing, and encourages the EPA to stop being so sloppy with its work in that regard (MDN’s interpretation of what Harris said).

In essence, Mr. Harris accuses Ms. Jackson and the EPA of promoting a political agenda instead of performing real science. A copy of the full letter is embedded below.

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Commonwealth Court Hears Arguments in Act 13 Lawsuit
June 7, 2012June 7, 2012

Arguments in the lawsuit brought by seven Pennsylvania townships and a handful of individuals against the state over newly passed drilling legislation known as Act 13 were heard in PA Commonwealth Court yesterday in Harrisburg. The towns are suing to overturn a portion of the Act 13 law which eliminates most of zoning rights of PA towns when it comes to zoning oil and gas drilling (see this MDN story for background).

So how did it go? Depends on who you ask.

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

Fracking Bills in NY Legislature See Movement
June 7, 2012June 7, 2012

Several bills that deal with hydraulic fracturing are making their way through the legislature in Albany, but with only eight days left in the legislative session for 2012, it’s not at all assured any of them will pass. The bills range from stricter control of fracking wastewater to an outright ban on fracking in the state—and everything in between.

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

Elected Democrats Tell Cuomo to Continue Fracking Moratorium
June 7, 2012June 7, 2012

A new partisan effort is under way to pressure New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to just keep the hydraulic fracturing moratorium in place for another year, and another year, and another year…

This effort is to get elected officials throughout the state to sign a letter which asks Cuomo to keep the moratorium in place, “until analyses have thoroughly and properly evaluated the potential health, economic, and cumulative environmental impacts on local communities.” Of course that very analysis has been going on now for four years, so may we presume another four years or more is what they’re asking for?

So far, the “letter” (which is really a website with a form on it) has 306 signatures (as of June 7) from elected representatives—everything from town clerks to county legislators to mayors—virtually of them Democrats.

You can find the letter and the list of signatories (people you should vote out of office), here: //www.nyelectedofficials.org/.
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Monongalia County | Regulation | West Virginia

Morgantown WV Attempts to Ban Fracking a Second Time
June 6, 2012June 6, 2012

Here we go again. Yesterday, the Morgantown, WV City Council voted on new legislation that would “regulate” (i.e. ban) hydraulic fracturing. But this time, those sharp-as-a-tack council members have contented themselves with regulating it within their own borders.

You may recall that last year the same Morgantown City Council (pictured below) passed a ban on fracking that included areas up to one mile outside of the city limits in a blatant attempt to try and stop the fracking of two gas wells that sit about a mile from the edge of the city. A WV circuit court judge overturned the ban (see this MDN story). Since then, both of those Marcellus wells were fracked, came online, and somehow, mystically—there has been no water contamination or ill health affects of any kind. Who woulda thunk?

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Industrywide Issues | Regulation | Trucking

US DOT Clamps Down on Max Hours Shale Industry Truckers Work
June 6, 2012June 6, 2012

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently delivered a “rule clarification” that means trucking firms may no longer subtract “down time”—like waiting for water and sand to be loaded/unloaded—from the maximum number of hours a driver can work per day. Some trucking firms were using a loophole, an exemption for special oil field service equipment, to increase the total number of hours drivers worked. No more.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Ulster County

Town of Rochester, NY Considers Fracking Ban
June 6, 2012June 6, 2012

The Town of Rochester, NY, located in Ulster County along the Hudson River (and not the City of Rochester located on the opposite side of the state) is considering a ban on hydraulic fracturing:

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

AP Story: NY Should Give Up on Drilling Before It’s Begun
June 4, 2012June 4, 2012

An AP story that appeared over the weekend attempts to make the case that Pennsylvania is so far ahead in the natural gas game that New York shouldn’t even make an attempt to allow fracking. The opening paragraph compares the situation to a runner with a huge lead in a foot race—PA will dominate natural gas for years to come.

The logic of the AP writer goes like this:

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Chemung County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation

Horseheads, NY Still Considering a Ban on Fracking
June 1, 2012June 1, 2012

As MDN previously reported, the Town of Horseheads (NY) continues to flirt with the idea of enacting a fracking ban (see this MDN story). What makes Horseheads different from the other 90 or so towns that have enacted bans in New York different is that it’s located in prime Marcellus and Utica Shale development territory—in Chemung County, just across the border from the super-hot drilling area of Bradford County, PA. If Horseheads does ban fracking, it would be the second such municipality in the Marcellus “zone” to do so, after the City of Binghamton in nearby Broome County.

Town Supervisor Michael Edwards floated the idea of a fracking ban at a recent Town Board meeting—and he’s still pursuing it:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Senate Bill Would Empower States (Alone) to Regulate Fracking
June 1, 2012June 1, 2012

Recognizing the federal government’s voracious appetite to usurp and seize control of rights that Constitutionally belong to the states—and in an effort to curb those tendencies in the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior, and Department of Energy—Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) introduced new legislation on March 28th that will ensure oversight of hydraulic fracturing is done by the states and not the federal government.

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Broome County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Regulation

City of Binghamton Gets Sued Over Fracking Ban
May 31, 2012May 31, 2012

Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan’s folly, a symbolic ban on hydraulic fracturing within the city, has now come back to bite him in the rear end. His folly will cost Binghamton City taxpayers a lot of money as the city has now been sued over their illegal ban, passed at the eleventh hour last December before Ryan was about to lose a majority of support from the Binghamton City Council in January (voters tossing out some of the all-Democrat council members in the last election).

The Binghamton law firm Hinman, Howard & Kattell filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in state Supreme Court on behalf of five plaintiffs to overturn the Binghamton ban.

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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

EPA Study: Marcellus Fracking Does NOT Impact Drinking Water
May 30, 2012May 30, 2012

This is big news folks. You may recall that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting a multi-year study of hydraulic fracturing in a transparent attempt to seize control of oil and gas drilling in the U.S.—grabbing that control away from the individual states who are empowered under the U.S. Constitution to regulate drilling in their own states. As part of the EPA study, they are analyzing water samples in locations where there has been a lot of shale gas fracking (see this MDN story for a copy of the EPA’s study plan).

Chesapeake Energy participated shoulder to shoulder with the EPA by taking water samples at the same time and from the same locations in Bradford County, PA. They then had those water samples analyzed by accredited laboratories, and the results analyzed by an independent specialist. Here’s what they found…

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

IEA Releases “Golden Rules” for Shale Gas Drilling
May 30, 2012May 30, 2012

The International Energy Agency (IEA), an independent organization formed in the early 1970s in response to the oil shortage and composed of 28 member countries including the U.S., released a shale gas report report yesterday they call “Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas” (a copy of the full report is embedded below). The new Golden Rules report is the IEA’s attempt at encouraging the growth of the natural gas industry. Their “expert” opinion and prescription? Drillers need to behave themselves, countries and local governments need to highly regulate shale gas drilling, and if those two things happen, the general population will accept it.

Saying that drillers need to “earn and maintain their social license to operate,” the report’s chief author maintains that without public trust the very new and in many ways infant shale gas industry will die. She also admits the prescriptions they outline will increase the cost of drilling by at least 7 percent, but she maintains without these measures, that 7 percent will be better than no drilling at all.

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

PA Political Left Believes Marcellus Compact is DOA
May 30, 2012May 30, 2012

Lest you think that MDN is just so much right-wing, Tea Party-spouting bilge when we make quips about the politics of drilling, we offer the following into evidence that our views and opinions are dead-on accurate.

Yesterday MDN wrote an article about the so-called Marcellus Compact, a set of six bills that have been introduced by left-wing PA Democrats in what MDN considers an attempt to have an issue to run on in the next election (see this MDN story). MDN pointed out the bills have no chance of passage.

It seems the left shares the same view as MDN about the Marcellus Compact. To wit:

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

PA Dems Introduce 6 New Bills to “Fix” Act 13 Drilling Law
May 29, 2012May 29, 2012

Pennsylvania Democrats have introduced a series of six grandstanding bills into the state legislature called the “Marcellus Compact” that stand no chance of passage. But that’s not why they introduced them. The purpose is to have an issue they can demagogue as they try to win back control of one or both state houses in the next election.

According to the Dems and the sycophantic media that supports them:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation | Statewide OH | Wastewater

Ohio Passes New Drilling Law, Gov. Kasich Will Sign
May 25, 2012May 25, 2012

Ohio’s new shale oil and gas drilling legislation (SB 315) has now passed both the House (73-19) and the Senate (21-8) and is on the way to Gov. John Kasich’s desk for his signature, which it will receive. The bill as passed is 220 pages long and wide-ranging in its scope, covering not only shale oil and gas extraction, but renewable energy, water conservation, and wastewater treatment. The bill reportedly contains some of the strictest rules in the nation for hydraulic fracturing.

So what’s in the bill? MDN doubts you want to read through 220 pages to find out. Embedded below is the 70-page summary overview version. However, here’s a few brief highlights of what’s in it:

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