Regulation

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

Anti-Driller Groups in Ohio Don’t Like Being Legally Neutered
May 24, 2012May 24, 2012

Ohio legislators have been working to craft new shale oil and gas drilling rules that will do more to protect the environment, and at the same time, help protect the fledgling shale drilling industry in the state. New legislation passed in committee yesterday that will now go to the full House includes a provision to help prevent frivolous lawsuits brought by deep-pocketed anti-drilling groups, like the Ohio Environmental Council and the Sierra Club. These groups, who are opposed to expanded use of fossil fuels, use the legal system to tie up shale drillers in court and force them to spend huge sums of money as a tactic to reduce fossil fuel mining and use.

When the Ohio House added a protection against such shenanigans, predictably the anti-drillers objected.

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

NY DEC Chief Martens Says Fracking Can be Done Safely
May 24, 2012May 24, 2012

Finally, one thing that Joe Martens has said publicly that MDN fully agrees with. Martens, for those new to the drilling debate in New York, is the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation—the organization that is tasked with regulating oil and gas drilling in the state. Martens is also the former long-time president of the Open Spaces Institute, an organization dedicated to stopping development of land. Strange choice by Andy Cuomo to run the organization tasked with developing the state’s land. But whatever.

Here’s what Martens said at a conference yesterday in New York City:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Sierra Club Hindering Change from Coal to Natural Gas
May 23, 2012May 23, 2012

In what can only be described as idiotic, the Sierra Club is actively preventing utility companies from converting electrical generating plants from coal to natural gas—because they don’t like fracking. This kind of stuff has to stop.

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

NY Towns Pass Resolution They WON’T Ban Fracking
May 21, 2012May 21, 2012

Tired of New York municipalities passing ill-advised bans on fracking, and hoping to increase the chances that landowners will be “first in line” for permits when they are finally issued, a group of landowners in New York have launched a campaign to get municipalities to pass a non-binding resolution that they will not enact a ban on fracking—and it’s working.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Vermont Becomes First State to Ban Fracking
May 17, 2012May 17, 2012

In a purely symbolic gesture, Vermont has become the first (and likely only) state in union to ban hydraulic fracturing. Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the law yesterday with a crowd of grade school students from Twinfield Union School who have been brainwashed by their teachers into thinking fossil fuels are evil. The ban is symbolic because there is no oil or gas underneath Vermont to drill for.

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

Another New York Town Considers Fracking Ban
May 11, 2012May 11, 2012

Yet another New York town, this one squarely in the Marcellus Shale “hot zone” of the Southern Tier area (Chemung County), is considering a ban on fracking if the state moves forward with allowing it.

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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA | Taxation

PA PUC Adopts Guidelines for Impact Fee Collection/Disbursement
May 11, 2012May 11, 2012

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) yesterday finalized provisions of Act 13 of 2012 related to the collection and disbursement of the impact fee for unconventional natural gas well drilling. Known as Chapter 23 of Act 13, the PUC voted 5-0 to finalize the procedures they would use to implement, collect and distribute the impact fee. A copy of the “Chapter 23 Final Implementation Order” as adopted is embedded below.

Because of an active lawsuit by seven townships and others against zoning provisions in Act 13 (known as Chapter 33 of Act 13), the PUC delayed action on that section of the new law.

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Act 13 Zoning Lawsuit Goes to Trial in June
May 10, 2012May 10, 2012

An update on the Act 13 lawsuit filed by seven Pennsylvania municipalities and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network at the end of March (see this MDN story). Act 13 is a set of new drilling rules and regulations adopted by the PA legislature and signed by Gov. Tom Corbett in February of this year. Part of the new regs included a statute that says state rules on zoning for oil and gas drilling supersede or override local zoning laws. The seven towns and Riverkeeper sued to stop that portion of the new law and Commonwealth Court Judge Keith Quigley granted a temporary, 120 day injunction (see this MDN story).

The case will now be heard by the full nine-member Commonwealth Court between June 4-8. That’s big news. But there’s even bigger news:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Vermont will Become First State to Ban Fracking
May 9, 2012May 9, 2012

Not that it matters beyond PR value, but Vermont will become the first state to ban the practice of hydraulic fracturing, either later this week or next:

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