PA County Court Rules Drilling OK in Ag/Residential District
Since the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s horrible decision in the infamous “Robinson” case that ruled local municipalities have the right to regulate oil and gas drilling via local zoning ordinances, there have been several cases where anti-drillers have tried to turn the decision (a decision they earnestly desired) on its head. The “Supreme” justices decided that local towns and cities can control where drilling takes place–although they must reserve at least one zoned district (industrial) where they allow oil and gas drilling (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against State/Drillers in Act 13 Case). What the antis didn’t factor is that there are some local communities with clear-thinking and straight heads on their shoulders–communities that may evaluate a request for drilling and grant an exception to allow it, in oh, say a agricultural/residential area instead of just an industrial area. Perhaps the most famous example of such a case currently being litigated is in Butler County where parents from the Mars School School district along with two Big Green groups from Philadelphia are using the courts to block, since last November, legally permitted and town-approved drilling 3/4 of a mile from the Mars School District (see Rex Drilling Operation Near Mars School Put on Hold). The convoluted argument from antis is, in essence, zoning regulations are not strict enough. That’s not what the Act 13 decision was about. You can’t have your cake AND eat it too. Some towns will decide to allow drilling under their zoning laws that you may not agree with! A similar case has just been decided in Westmoreland County in local county court–and it’s very good news for the Marcellus industry…
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A story in Philadelphia Magazine perfectly illustrates the Nazi-like control freaks that inhabit anti-fossil fuel organizations like Food and Water Watch and the fringe group Action United. Philadelphia City Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. is a bone fide, card-carrying liberal Democrat. In 2011 Jones called for a fracking moratorium in the Delaware River Basin. Since that time Jones has actively advocated for no fracking/drilling in the Philadelphia region. Four years ago the Marcellus Shale Coalition invited Jones (and others) to tour a drilling rig, to see how it’s done. At the time, he declined. It’s always so much easier when you stick your head in…the sand. But Jones is a member of the Philadelphia Gas Commission, the group that oversees the city-owned Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW). A recent audit recommends PGW buy more Marcellus Shale gas (see 
An Associated Press (AP) story appearing in multiple newspapers and in online outlets has returned to the meme of how unfair it is that pipelines in Pennsylvania are not taxed, as they are in other states like New York, Ohio and West Virginia. Perhaps they have a point? No, MDN isn’t going “soft”! We’ve long made the argument that a permanent structure in the ground should benefit landowners beyond a one-time, up-front payment (see the suggestion by Bryant LaTourette made at the Constitution Pipeline scoping hearing in April 2014: 
In a big metaphorical slap across the face, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board (TAB) has voted to not endorse re-worked drilling regulations proposed by the PennFuture Sec. of the DEP, John Quigley. We told you two days ago the DEP was meeting with TAB to get the group’s rubber stamp of approval (see 
Wow. We didn’t think it possible. The PennFuture Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), John Quigley himself, is sticking up for the honor and reputation of his agency. Last week the Democrat-run Harrisburg Patriot-News ran an attack series against shale energy. We told you about it by reprinting Tom Shepstone’s excellent critique (see 
About 20 hippie retreads showed up in Harrisburg, PA on Wednesday to protest outside of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) regional office in Harrisburg to protest the fourth meeting of Gov. Tom Wolf’s Pipeline Infrastructure Taskforce. In May Gov. Wolf announced he was forming a taskforce to study and make recommendations on how the state can better work with (i.e. control) where local gathering pipelines are installed (see 
Way back in May 2014 MDN told you that UGI Energy Services, a subsidiary of UGI (a utility company in northeast PA) would build two new pipelines in northeast PA for $80 million that will allow them to transport cheap, abundant, locally extracted natural gas from Cabot Oil & Gas in Susquehanna County to residents in the greater Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area (see 
Shortly after assuming the office of Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley (who formerly worked for the anti-drilling Big Green group PennFuture) mass-fired a very important group at the DEP called the Oil & Gas Technical Advisory Board, or TAB (see 
We’ve heard just about everything blamed on fracking. Global warming? Yep–blame fracking because fracking produces natural gas and natural gas, when burned, turns into carbon dioxide and and abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere supposedly heats the planet (although the average temp hasn’t gone up in nearly 19 years now). What about STDs–sexually transmitted diseases? Yep–blame fracking because nefarious roustabouts from “foreign” locations like Texas and Oklahoma show up to work on rigs, and the only off-hours things they do is screw the local women-folk and spread STDs all over the place (do you honestly think they have an ounce of energy left after working a 12-15 hour day lifting heavy stuff at a rig site?). Here’s a new one we’ve just heard for the first time: you can blame fracking in places like Pennsylvania for the high cost of firewood this winter. Say what???…
EdgeMarc Energy is a small driller headquartered in the Pittsburgh area, formed in 2012. The company has leased 50,000 acres in the Marcellus and Utica Shales. On Monday EdgeMarc issued a press release to announce they’ve attracted a new investor–the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan–which has promised the company up to $300 million in cash in return for part ownership (called an “equity commitment”). The announcement also says EdgeMarc currently drills and produces natural gas in Monroe and Washington counties in Ohio, and Butler County in Pennsylvania. In checking the latest issue of our 
Layoffs in the natural gas industry have cut wide and deep. We spotted one article recently that said layoffs worldwide have hit 200,000 (see Forbes: 
A gang of Big Green groups are tickled pink–or is it tickled “green”–that their continuous frivolous lawsuits against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have once again yield the desired result. Radical leftist “green” groups like Earthworks, Environmental Integrity Project, THE Delaware Riverkeeper, and yes, PennFuture (where PA’s current Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley, used to work), had previously sued the federal EPA to force onerous new reporting rules on natural gas processing plants, using lies about the kinds of air pollutants released by the plants. The EPA cooperates with these sleazy organizations in a “sue and settle” scam. “Hey, you sue us for this, a liberal judge will ‘make us’ do it–then we can bypass Congress and everyone else and set up our own laws outside of that stupid old Constitution.” That’s how these groups collude with the EPA (see 
THE Delaware Riverkeeper is running a scam on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). By all accounts it is a legal scam–but a scam nonetheless. FERC has a process known as a