Making a Strong Case Against PA Gov. Wolf’s RGGI Carbon Tax
Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry and its power generation industry are closely tied together. What happens in one directly and profoundly affects what happens in the other. Why? Because a majority of PA’s electricity is generated by Marcellus natural gas (see the chart at left). Gov. Tom Wolf thinks he can force the state to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, or Reggie as it’s pronounced) to raise $2.36 billion he can give away. RGGI is a tax on carbon, a tax on gas-fired (and coal-fired) power generation. It will effectively kill the Marcellus-fired generation in the state, and in turn, severely wound the entire Marcellus industry that depends on selling its gas to power generators.
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Two of three Marcellus/Utica states received permits to drill new shale wells last week, and boy did they open the floodgates! Pennsylvania issued 30 new permits, the majority of which are located on three well pads operated by EQT, Chesapeake Energy, and Range Resources. Ohio issued no new permits. After getting skunked for two weeks in a row, West Virginia issued 16 new permits–to just two drillers: Antero Resources and EQT. All of the WV permits were issued in the same county.
We finally come to the end of a saga that began nearly three years ago, in Sept. 2018 when six men were charged with conspiring to illegally alter emissions systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines, trucks used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
A small group of extremist left-wing Democrats in Pittsburgh are demanding Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, himself a Democrat and long-time supporter of the Marcellus Shale industry, turn against shale. Last week around 30 fossil fuel haters delivered a petition signed by 300 fellow haters to Fitzgerald’s office. He didn’t cave to the pressure, so the haters became more aggressive, going to Fitzgerald’s house yesterday in their attempts to bully him into submission. The cops told them to clear out or get arrested.
Last night the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) held a virtual hearing on a compromise plan between Energy Transfer/Sunoco Logistics and the DEP to allow ET/Sunoco to complete construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline project in the Marsh Creek State Park area (Chester County) where there have been some “issues” that halted work in the area. Given the buildup by the anti-fossil fuel left to turn out and mouth off at the hearing, we’re struck that (so far) it is radio silence in mainstream media about the hearing. We can’t find a single story about the hearing. We do, however, have a report on more than two dozen pro-pipeline speakers who turned out for the virtual hearing. Perhaps that’s why the media is silent?
Adelphia Gateway, a plan to convert an old oil pipeline stretching from Northampton County, PA through Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties, terminating in Delaware County at Marcus Hook, recently received permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to begin final the final bits of construction (see 
A federal court in Pennsylvania upheld the findings of a U.S. Dept. of Labor investigation that oil and gas contract worker Henkels & McCoy Inc. owes big money in back wages and overtime to 362 workers at 11 worksites in five states, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Connecticut, Georgia, and (yes) even in New York too. The company must now pay $1,085,830 in back wages and damages.
“A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” (See below for the full quote.) Yesterday Pennsylvania Democrats unveiled their latest “generous gifts” they’re promising to bestow on Pennsylvanians from the public treasury if Gov. Wolf gets his way and imposes a Marcellus-killing carbon tax on electric power generation. The Dems figure they can raise about $300 million a year via a carbon tax and they have a wish list bigger than your wildest dreams for where they’ll spend it. One tiny problem for the Dems…
Keystone Clearwater Solutions, a company that provides water services for shale drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, is buying the Pennsylvania operations of competitor ECM Energy Services. Keystone, which operates primarily in Pennsylvania, is picking up ECM’s Williamsport, PA operation and rebranding it under the Keystone name. ECM says the sale frees them up to concentrate on their operations in Ohio and West Virginia.
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 
