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NARO Warns WV & OH About PA Cross-Unit Drilling Bill
In March MDN brought readers a pair of posts about a new bill in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, HB 247, which would allow fully leased parcels that are part of one drilling “unit” to be combined with parcels in a different unit–“cross-unit drilling” if you will (see PA Floats Bill to Allow Shale Drilling to Span Multiple Units and Revisiting PA Bill to Allow Shale Drilling Across Multiple Units). The National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) at a recent meeting in WV warned landowners about HB 247 and its potential to come to both WV and OH if it passes in PA.
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Last Tuesday evening a 68-year-old woman was home in her bed in Clarion County, PA when she heard an explosion and a wall collapsed on her. She freed herself from the rubble and drove to a neighbor’s house for assistance. The home, a garage and greenhouse were all destroyed as a result of the explosion and fire. The cause? Natural gas “migrating” in the basement of the home. A local delivery pipeline and a nearby transmission pipeline were both taken out of service while the PA Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission’s (PUC) investigation unit takes a look at the cause.
We’re always delighted to share news of a “new” pipeline project in the Marcellus/Utica. This particular project from Dominion Energy, tiny compared to most, its unusual in that it will flow natural gas from western PA into Ohio to feed a new natural gas-fired electric plant. You don’t often see gas from PA flow to Ohio for local use. Kind of a “man bites dog” story.
It’s hard enough for drillers to get permits town by town in Pennsylvania, where the standards are all different thanks to the seven selfish towns that appealed the Act 13 law passed in 2012 (see 
Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw, Republican from Lycoming County, PA, seems to have changed his mind about a severance tax on Marcellus Shale production. The Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) visited Williamsport in Yaw’s home district yesterday. At a joint press conference to discuss the superiority of an impact fee to a severance tax, Yaw called those supporting a severance tax “bobbleheads.” Whoa, way to go Sen. Yaw! That’s a far cry from his vote in favor of a severance tax in 2017 (see 
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected hearing a case appealed from a lower court by a group of Lancaster County landowners who claim Williams and their Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project abused eminent domain authority by building the pipeline before litigating (for years) how much money landowners should receive–landowners who refused to negotiate in good faith in the first place.
In April MDN told you that Pennsylvania State Senators Camera Bartolotta (Washington County) and Pat Stefano (Fayette County) had beaten PA Gov. Tom Wolf at his own game by offering to pay for his so-called Restore PA plan, not by using a severance tax on shale production, but instead by allowing more shale drilling on PA state lands (see 
Pennsylvania Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, and the anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, continue their tag-team effort to criminalize and humiliate Range Resources. Shapiro, a sleazy politician, is investigating so-called environmental “crimes” committed by shale companies in a bid to boost his chances of being the next nominee to run for governor (see 
A new study just published in the peer reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters by an international team of researchers finds that natural gas “has half the carbon footprint of underground coal mining.” The researchers looked at (did measurements of, actual real science) methane in the atmosphere by flying transects over the southwestern portion of Pennsylvania and adjacent portions of West Virginia and Ohio. Marcellus/Utica central. One of the researchers from Penn State said this about the findings: “Obviously, renewable energy would be better, but there is no debate, switching to natural gas is worth it in the short run.”
The smear job Pittsburgh Post-Gazette propagandists Don Hopey and David Templeton began last week continues this week–an attempt to connect drill cuttings (leftover rock and dirt from drilling a hole in the ground) to “toxic” chemicals coming from a landfill in Westmoreland County where the drill cuttings are less than half of the dumped waste. The effluent–runoff from the landfill–is piped to a nearby sewage treatment facility in Belle Vernon for processing and discharge into the Mon River.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf continues to take credit for Pipeline Investment Program (PIPE), a program he didn’t create, didn’t support, and didn’t even sign into law. Typical. Even so, the program continues to benefit local rural communities throughout the state. The latest two communities to benefit are Crawford and Wayne counties where grants of $300,000 and $376,392 respectively have just been announced by Wolf’s Dept. of Community and Economic Development (DCED) to expand local natgas delivery pipes.
Yesterday MDN brought you the news that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has sunk to a new low in his effort to slap a $4.5 billion severance tax on the Marcellus gas industry (see 
Last November the judges in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court issued a ruling in favor of Penn Township (Westmoreland County) granting “special exception” permits to Apex Energy, allowing them to drill four shale wells (see 
Pennsylvania’s worst governor in a generation, Tom Wolf, continues his Santa Claus routine. Only this time with a twist…he’s become Bad Santa. Wolf has traipsed around the state for the past few months touting his so-called Restore PA program–a program that will fund all sorts of projects around the state–to the tune of a massive $4.5 billion. However, the only revenue source Wolf will consider to fund his Santa Claus giveaways is a Marcellus-killing severance tax.