PA Supreme Court Decides “Title Washing” OK in Mineral Rights Case
You’ve heard of “whitewashing” before. How about “title washing?” No, we hadn’t either. But this funny sounding practice has a great deal to do with mineral rights in Pennsylvania, with possible implications for landowners and drillers. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a 5-0 ruling last week that upholds the practice of title washing in the Keystone State. What in the world is it, and how does it affect landowners and drillers? In the case of Herder Spring Hunting Club v. Keller there had been a tax sale in 1935 for a property in Centre County, PA where the mineral rights had previously been separated. Prior to 1948 if mineral rights that had been separated were not properly recorded (it was incumbent on the owner of the subsurface rights to ensure the sale was recorded at the assessor’s office), and the surface land was later sold, both the mineral rights (subsurface) and the surface land became part of the sale. That, in essence, was title washing. After 1948 a law prevented this from happening, so such cases only apply to land sold before 1948. The legal beagles at Babst Calland have a good overview of what the practice of title washing is, and how the Court’s decision affects Pennsylvanians. We also have a copy of the decision embedded below…
Read More “PA Supreme Court Decides “Title Washing” OK in Mineral Rights Case”
In May MDN brought you the news that a researcher at West Virginia University believes an natural gas liquids (NGL) storage hub is what the Marcellus/Utica region really needs (see 
An update on Spectra Energy’s Texas Eastern Transmission’s (TETCO) “Delmont Line 27” which exploded in Westmoreland County, PA on April 29 (see 
The anti-frackers at the Johns Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health are out with another bought-and-paid-for (by anti-drillers) “study” that implies the presence of fracking in Pennsylvania leads to causing or making worse asthma attacks. You may recall the same group of antis pushed out a study last October that supposedly shows fracking leads to premature births (see 
Yesterday the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) released an updated version of an online GIS (i.e. mapping) application that allows users to learn information and download reports about oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. The DEP also released a new video tutorial (embedded below) that explains how to use the 
A year ago MDN told you about a new gathering pipeline project in Butler County, PA. Rex Energy contracted with Stonehenge Energy Resources to build a gathering system in Butler County (see 
Some interesting Marcellus-related items were included in the recently adopted Pennsylvania state budget that have largely flown under the radar. There are also a few things that weren’t in the budget bill–previously intended to be part of it–that didn’t survive the process. At the top of the list is lack of a severance tax. But right behind that (for us) is that a gross receipts tax on natural gas use, which we thought would be part of the final deal, was not. As MDN previously reported, a gross receipts tax taxes end users of natural gas, in essence targeting low-income households (see 
Last Friday MDN brought you the really big news that Sunoco Logistics Partners had won a major appeals court case that recognizes them as a public utility in Pennsylvania with the right to use eminent domain to build the Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline (see 
In the past we’ve been pretty critical of the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO). It claims to provide revenue projections for use in the state budget process along with “impartial and timely analysis of fiscal, economic and budgetary issues to assist Commonwealth residents and the General Assembly in their evaluation of policy decisions.” It’s been our observation the IFO is populated with partisan Democrats. However, we have to acknowledge their prediction of impact fee revenue from 2015 was spot on. Earlier this year the IFO predicted that when the dust had settled, the impact fee would generate $185.5 million (see “Independent” Fiscal Office Says PA Impact Fee Revenue Drops 17%). When the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) finally reported the actual numbers, it turned out to be $188 million (see 