PA Sen Yaw 2022 ToDo List: More Pipes, Defeat RGGI, Block Gas Bans
We’ve had our disagreements with Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw over the years (about a severance tax in PA), but for the past half dozen or more years Yaw, from Lycoming County, has been a stalwart champion of the PA Marcellus industry. Frankly, the shale industry could not ask for a better representative in the PA legislature. Yaw, chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, has done his best to defeat Tom Wolf’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax. Yaw is also promoting more pipelines in the Keystone State.
Read More “PA Sen Yaw 2022 ToDo List: More Pipes, Defeat RGGI, Block Gas Bans”
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. In 2021 Olympus filed an application to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project (see 
Pennsylvania permits to drill new shale wells hit a 13-year low in November 2021 (see 
Rising Phoenix Royalties (RPR) announced it has purchased the future royalty payments from a landowner in the Marcellus Shale, in Washington County, PA. This latest purchase by RPR covers 98 acres drilled under by Range Resources. This is not the first RPR transaction we’ve reported on.
Five Chinese researchers recently published a study in Springer’s Environmental Science and Pollution Research International journal that claims to have identified environmental and health threats in unconventional oil and gas by analyzing old compliance reports from the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection. The study claims to have found problems with erosion and sedimentation issues and with water pollution issues. Their conclusion is that PA fines aren’t high enough to change the bad behavior of shale drillers.
Last September UGI Corporation, one of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility companies, completed a deal to buy Mountaineer Gas Company, one of West Virginia’s largest natural gas utility companies, for $540 million (see 
We’re not sure why this story is not the top story on all of the state and national news networks. Using the threat of withholding public money, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf outright extorted Democrat members of the PA legislature to support his odious carbon tax plan, otherwise known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Before a key vote last month in the PA Legislature, Wolf offered a quid pro quo: Democrat legislators either support RGGI or Wolf will withhold approval for state funding for local projects in their districts. Why are there no investigations and demands for jail time?
This edition of the Marcellus/Utica permits report covers the past two weeks as MDN was taking a break during the last week of 2021. For the period of December 20 through January 2, there were 29 permits issued to drill new shale wells in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. PA had 16 new permits (most of them located on two well pads), OH had 12 new permits (spread across five well pads), and WV had just one new permit. Must be WV DEP took the last two weeks of the year off.
Energy Transfer’s (ET) Revolution Pipeline in southwestern Pennsylvania runs through Bulter, Beaver, Allegheny, and Washington counties. The 24-inch gathering pipeline shifted and exploded in September 2018, just as it was entering service (see 
In early December the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) agreed to allow Energy Transfer to change the way it will install the Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline in the Marsh Creek Lake area in Chester County, PA (see