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Study: Shell Cracker Will Create $3.7 Billion in PA Economy Each Year
A new study prepared for Shell Chemical Appalachia earlier this year is just coming to light now. The study, researched by professors at Robert Morris University (RMU), calculates the impact on the Pennsylvania economy from the soon-to-be-completed Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA. The numbers are staggering. Each and every year that cracker operates RMU projects the cracker will create $3.7 billion throughout the PA economy. Amazing! And it’s ALL private money–no government transfers from one taxpayer to another. Joe Biden should be jumping up and down and extolling this from the rooftops! Instead, he’s attacking fossil fuels.
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In a brilliant move aimed at boxing in the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), two northeastern Pennsylvania State Senators–Gene Yaw and Lisa Baker–along with members of the PA Senate Republican Caucus (27 Senators in all), filed a lawsuit in January against the DRBC accusing the quasi-governmental agency of “taking” the property rights of PA residents without just compensation under the law (see 
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf pulled a fast one. He pressured the PA Environmental Quality Board (EQB), a powerful committee operating under the larger umbrella of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), to hold a hearing and cast a vote yesterday (in the dead of summer with everyone out of town) on whether or not PA should join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an obscene tax on carbon for power generators including natgas power plants. The EQB, packed with people who depend on Wolf for their jobs (he’s their boss), voted in favor of advancing the $2.6 billion RGGI carbon tax proposal by 15-4. No surprise there. It was an inside job.
This is so tiresome. The Chester County District Attorney’s office continues to persecute two lowly Pennsylvania Constables for doing their job in warning off crazy anti-fossil fuel fanatics who approached a construction site for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project. The DA’s office thought it could fool everyone with a catchy slogan, calling what the constables did a “buy a badge scheme.” What it was, was two guys working for near minimum wage who happen to have a badge, using that badge to keep people from hurting themselves. And for that, they’re being prosecuted by the Chester DA. Shameful. The case is being tried before a jury right now.
Last week not a whole lot of permit action was goin’ on. Pennsylvania scored only a single (1) new permit. We can’t remember the last time that happened! The PA permit was for a well that will be drilled by EQT in Greene County. Ohio’s Utica got skunked with no new permits. West Virginia rode in to save the day, posting 5 new permits–4 of them for Tug Hill and 1 for Antero Resources.
According to an analysis done by S&P Global Market Intelligence, the five largest drillers in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale resumed their drilling in June in a big way. S&P’s analysis shows those five drillers were responsible for 51% of the new drilling permits issued last month, up from 28% of new permits issued in May. Perhaps we know why. The price of natgas at regional hubs in PA rocketed over the past month. At the Leidy Hub in the northeast’s dry gas window (centered on Susquehanna County, PA), cash prices went from a low of 93.7 cents/MMBtu on May 3 to $3.07/MMBtu at the end of June.
Charlie Melançon is a former U.S. Congressman from Louisiana who played an integral role in rebuilding Louisiana’s infrastructure following the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Melançon served on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversaw energy policy and environmental quality among other issues. He sees a lot of parallels between his home state of Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Melançon has written an editorial appearing in a major PA newspaper hoping to inform and encourage Pennsylvanians to wake up to the fact that pipelines are the key to PA becoming the energy hub of the northeast. Conversely, without (more) pipelines, PA will not realize its potential. Pipelines are the key. Melançon is uniquely qualified to know.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just published its 2020 Oil and Gas Annual Report. This is the fifth year in a row the DEP has published the report in an interactive, electronic (i.e.online) format ONLY. Don’t worry, we’ve turned it into a convenient PDF for MDN readers. What does the 2020 report show? While permits issued and the number of new wells drilled have both gone down (again), gas production has gone up (again)–to a new record high.
Politicians derive their power from touching *your* money. They love to take money out of one of your pockets, handle it (siphon some of it off for themselves and their favorite cronies), and then put some (not all) of it back into another of your pockets–all while telling you that you should enjoy the violation you’ve just received. This is the elaborate hoax Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and those who want to slap an insane, regressive carbon tax on all Pennsylvanians are attempting with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)–a carbon tax aimed at eliminating coal-fired power plants and vastly reducing the number of Marcellus-fired power plants.