Cool New Video Debunks/Explains PA Severance Tax Issue
A killer video on the topic of a severance tax in Pennsylvania has just been published (on Youtube) by the Clear Energy Alliance. The severance tax issue is one that we’ve tracked and written about for years–since Ed “fast Eddie” Rendell was governor. MDN caught up with Mark Mathis, founder of CEA, to talk about his latest video. Mark is an author and documentary film maker, and before that, a television reporter and anchor for ten years. Mark said he’s “a big language guy.” He began tracking issues in the energy industry some 15 years ago. Mark maintains the language we use to talk about energy is wrong–that the public doesn’t really understand. The PA severance tax issue is a perfect example. According to Mark (and the 4 1/2 minute video) PA Gov. Tom Wolf is being disingenuous when he says PA is “the only state without a severance tax.” While technically that’s true, what Wolf and other Harrisburg politicians don’t say is that PA has an “impact fee”–the equivalent of a severance tax. Plus PA has the second highest corporate income tax in the country, while other severance tax states (like Texas) have no corporate income tax. It’s virtually impossible to run an apples to apples comparison when it comes to how much a given company pays in taxes in a specific state. But according to Mark, slapping an additional tax on natural gas production in PA would be a disaster. The short video (which you MUST watch) explains it all in just a few minutes…
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The Martians and their allies have attacked once again. Run for the hills! This is a long-running story that’s just taken another (unfortunate) twist. A handful of anti-drilling parents from the Mars School District (“Martians”) in Butler County, PA, backed by money and legal help from Philadelphia Big Green groups THE Delaware Riverkeeper and the Clean Air Council, have filed frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit (see 
At various points over the past year or so, Sunoco Logistics, in using underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project, has negatively affected some private water wells. A dozen private wells were affected by ME2 work in West Whiteland Township, in Chester County, last summer (see 
With all of the negative news stories from mainstream media in Pennsylvania regarding the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline project, and the seemingly endless challenges by Philadelphia politicians in bed with Big Green groups to try and block the project, here’s a couple of facts to warm your heart, and give antis heartburn: (1) ME2 is now 99% done; (2) ME2 will most likely go online in the next two months–by the end of 3Q18. There will still be a few small areas where ME2 proper is not online in two months–locations near Philadelphia where there have been sinkhole problems. But Sunoco Logistics Partners (aka Energy Transfer), the builder, has a workaround–repurposing an out-of-service pipeline for a few months…
Huntingdon County, PA landowner Ellen Gerhart, adamantly opposed to the Mariner East 2 pipeline being constructed across her land, had her day in court on Friday. Gerhart, as we recently reported, was accused of violating a 2017 court order preventing her from interfering with ME2 construction on her property. It was alleged that she continued to do so anyway, against a judge’s order, and on Friday, July 27 she was arrested and jailed (see 
In early 2017, Baker Hughes (prior to GE buying them) spun off its North American shale fracking business (“pressure pumping”) into a new, standalone company called BJ Services (see 
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) yesterday voted 3-2 to allow construction to resume on the Mariner East 2 and 2x pipelines in West Whiteland Township, Chester County (near Philadelphia), ending a weeks-long stoppage specific only to that area. The shutdown began in May after a PUC administrative law judge’s highly questionable ruling, which affected ME1, ME2 and ME2x (see 
In April, MDN brought you the news that Pennsylvania Superior Court had handed down a decision (known as the “Briggs” case) that has the power to greatly restrict, perhaps even stop, Marcellus drilling in PA (see 
The usual suspects from Johns Hopkins University, working with researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have completely soiled themselves this time. It’s really kind of embarrassing. In a “study” just published in Nature, researchers claim they have found a link between living near fracking sites in Pennsylvania and an increased incidence of being *mildly* depressed. We get mildly depressed just reading this drivel. Maybe there’s a link between junk science and mild depression? Launch a study! The research team this time around includes a fellow from the Post Carbon Institute, a rabidly anti-fossil fuel organization that has called fracking a “virus.” You can tell just how biased and false this study truly is just based on the wackos who published it. The “study” is titled, “Associations of unconventional natural gas development with depression symptoms and disordered sleep in Pennsylvania” (full copy below). It’s not even real research. They used a bunch of medical records from a local hospital network (Geisinger) and didn’t actually interview anyone themselves. Totally made up. Total fiction. That’s what you need to know about the latest attack on Marcellus drilling…
An interesting development on Friday, when the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a press release to announced that three radical environmental groups have dropped their objections to permits the DEP previously granted for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. Clean Air Council, Mountain Watershed Association, and THE Delaware Riverkeeper “settled” their appeal of 20 permits issued to Sunoco for the ME2 project. What does it mean that they “settled?” According to the announcement, “The settlement does not alter any of the 20 permits in the appeal.” In other words, this is face-saving by the radical groups. They backed down. Gave up. Threw in the towel–recognizing that ME2 is about to be completed. In other words, they’ve lost. And we won! We love saying that. No matter how hard the radicals tried to spin the news (via their affiliated mouthpieces, like StateImpact Pennsylvania), you simply can’t gloss over the fact that they’ve backed down…
Every Friday afternoon from 4 to 5:30 pm, a single protesters (typically just one person) stand on a corner in Annville (Lebanon County), PA holding a sign to protest pipelines and fossil fuel energy. The selected protester, from a group calling itself Lebanon Pipeline Awareness, stands on a corner wearing clothes and sneakers made from plastics–i.e. fossil fuels. Sporting a sign made from materials that include fossil fuels. The protester was transported to that location using vehicles made from fossil fuels (loaded with plastic) and powered by fossil fuels (gasoline). The protester comes from a home or apartment heated and cooled with fossil fuels. The anti group alerted the media to come take a look at the “protest” by using computers made from and powered by fossil fuels. The protester drinks water from a plastic bottle–made from fossil fuels–as he/she stands there holding a fossil-fuel-made sign. And yet, these people are there to protest fossil fuels! Does anyone else see how utterly pathetic this is? How dishonest? How truly nutty?…
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued administrative orders requiring three oil and gas companies–Alliance Petroleum Corporation (a subsidiary of Diversified Gas & Oil), XTO Energy, and CNX Resources–to plug 1,058 abandoned oil and gas wells across Pennsylvania. Alliance has 638 wells, CNX has 327, and XTO has 93. In a quick scan of the list of wells to be plugged, we didn’t spot a single shale well. All 1,058 wells are conventional/vertical wells. So why is this news for MDN? Because all three drillers (but in particular CNX and XTO) drill shale wells, and plugging old conventional wells takes time and money–time and money that could be spent on drilling shale wells. It takes anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 to plug an abandoned conventional oil/gas well. Most of the wells are located in the southwestern part of the state. CNX responded that in reviewing the list, some 190 of the wells in their list (out of 327) were part of a recent asset sale. Here’s the details on where, and how long these companies have, to plug old/abandoned oil and gas wells…
It’s the end of the road for a highly hypocritical order of nuns in Lancaster, the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, who use natural gas to heat an old folks home they operate, yet are trying to block the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline from traversing that very same property. The nuns appear to be radical environmentalists. We don’t know how they justify using natural gas yet actively try to block a pipeline that delivers it. Only in the mind of a leftist. The nuns, with the help of local anti group Lancaster Against Pipelines, stuck a garden trellis and a few wooden park benches in the middle of a corn field they own (leased to a local farmer), declaring it a “chapel”–hence our attempt at humor, calling them “Sisters of the Corn.” The sisters then sued to block the pipeline based on religious grounds (see