Wolf DEP Sec. McDonnell Tries to End-Run Legislature on Carbon Tax
Last week MDN told you about Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf’s latest attempt to force through his effort to force PA to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax scheme (see Gov Wolf Tries to Bypass Legislature on Carbon Tax – Gets Caught). Wolf is using his patsy in the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Secretary Pat McDonnell, to try and get the final RGGI regulation published in the PA Bulletin. That effort bombed out when the Republican-controlled legislature blocked it. That battle continues…
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There was a decent number of new permits issued across all three actively drilling Marcellus/Utica states cumulatively last week. In Pennsylvania, 19 new shale well permits were issued across the state. In Ohio, three new shale permits were issued. West Virginia issued 8 new shale permits last week, with five going to a company we had not previously heard of.
As you know, MDN monitors new shale permits in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia by bringing you the weekly new permits issued report, typically on Wednesdays (
A long-fought-over wastewater injection well in Plum Boro (Allegheny County, Pittsburgh suburb) finally opened for business earlier this year, having overcome all sorts of smears and slanders and lawsuits by the enviro-left (see 
A natural gas pipeline project management company based in Canonsburg, PA, GW Ridge LLC, ceased all operations in November and filed for bankruptcy in a Texas federal court. Creditors owed money filed a competing Chapter 7 bankruptcy action against the company in Pittsburgh and GW Ridge withdrew its Texas filing and agreed to allow the Pittsburgh case to proceed. A Chapter 7 (as opposed to a Chapter 11) means the company has stopped all operations and its assets will be sold or auctioned and the money given to creditors. GW Ridge is no more.
Hart Energy’s DUG (Developing Unconventional Gas) East event was held this week in Pittsburgh, wrapping up this morning. Unfortunately, MDN could not attend the event this year. Some major news is coming from the event. One of the headline speakers from yesterday was CNX Resources CEO Nick DeIuliis who said he thinks it’s high time to seriously look at revising the now-ten-year-old impact fee that drillers pay (PA’s equivalent of a severance tax), a fee created as part of the Act 13 law. What would Nick change about the impact fee/tax?
Yesterday MDN brought you the news that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) along with the state Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) jointly fined Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project $4 million and is requiring it to perform another $4+ million worth of work at Marsh Creek Lake where construction last year caused an accidental spill of 8,000 gallons of nontoxic drilling mud (see 
Back in October Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running for the Democrat nomination for governor in 2022, told trade union workers he didn’t like current Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a huge tax on carbon dioxide assessed on coal and gas-fired power plants (see 
While drilling in Chester County in August 2020 in the Marsh Creek State Park area, Energy Transfer’s (ET) Mariner East 2X pipeline experienced an “inadvertent return”–nontoxic drilling mud coming up out of the ground where it’s not supposed to (see 
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), lapdog of leftwing Gov. Tom Wolf, tried to bypass the state legislature and secretly push through and get adopted a proposed regulation on the state joining the highly controversial Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state compact to limit carbon emissions from power plant operators (a carbon tax). The DEP just got caught red-handed.
Last Thursday CNX Resources reached a plea deal with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office over alleged violations of the Air Pollution Control Act and bad recordkeeping. Yeah, you read that right. State Attorney General Josh Shapiro (a real putz) leveled criminal charges against CNX over miscounting how many times the company used a pig (pipeline inspection gauge) to clean out a pipeline in Washington County, PA. An anti-fossil fuel zealot who lives near the pigging station complained about noise and emissions and ran squealing to the AG (pun intended).