PA Gov Wolf Attempts to Take Credit for Shell Cracker Decision

You know what’s really sleazy about politicians? When they take credit for something they had NOTHING to do with. Like Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf is doing with the fantastic news that Shell will build an ethane cracker plant in the state (see yesterday and today’s stories). The reason Shell even considered PA in the first place is because of Wolf’s far more able and talented predecessor, Gov. Tom Corbett. Corbett fought tooth and nail to get Shell to locate the cracker in the Keystone state. Part of Corbett’s fight included getting $1.7 billion in tax breaks approved, to lure the plant to PA (see Gov. Corbett’s PR Campaign for $1.7B Cracker Plant Tax Break). The cracker decision kept getting delayed during Corbett’s tenure, something he took a lot of heat over. If Shell had committed sooner, PA may have had a different election result (re-electing Corbett instead of the disastrous Wolf). Anywho, that was yesteryear, and today, Tom Wolf is taking credit for something Tom Corbett did. Typical…
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It was just two days ago MDN told you about a Pennsylvania-based electric power generating company–Talen Energy–getting bought out by an investment company (see 
This is the biggest of big news. We’ve been waiting for this day a LONG time. Earlier today Shell held a “Capital Markets Day” (in the Netherlands) and provided an extensive update on “reshaping” the company–for 2020 and beyond. As part of the update, hidden part of the way through their press release, we get this statement from Shell: “In Chemicals, the company already has brownfield growth projects underway on the US Gulf Coast and in China. 
MDN first told you about IMG Midstream in August 2014 (see 
In May 2015 MDN reported that after more than two years of acrimony and lawsuits between Range Resources and Mt. Pleasant (Washington County), PA., Range agreed to close four freshwater ponds (called “impoundments,” not to be confused with wastewater impoundments) the company was using to drill wells in nearby non-Mt. Pleasant locations (see
We are close to the endgame with respect to Pennsylvania adopting onerous new drilling regulations rammed through by the former Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley. MDN reported in April that the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) voted to approve the new regulations (see
Last July MDN told you that Talen Energy, an electric generation company based in Allentown, PA, had cut a deal to acquire MACH Gen, LLC, the owner of three natural gas-fired electric generating plants (see 
Since announcing the project in 2012, the Constitution Pipeline has handed out more than $2 million in community grants to fire departments, police departments and a variety of nonprofit organizations that benefit the community. Recently New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo decided to block the Constitution Pipeline to placate his radical left supporters (see 
MDN previously reported on the injustice happening in Bulter County, PA where a handful of anti-drilling parents from the Mars School District (“Martians”), backed by money from Philadelphia Big Green groups Delaware Riverkeeper and Clean Air Council, have filed frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit. The effort is aimed at denying landowners in Middlesex Township revenue from legally permitted drilling. The actions by these radicalized parents have cost the taxpayers of Middlesex Township over $80,000 in legal fees. Landowners with leases got together and sued the radicals to stop this miscarriage of justice (see
A decision by the Middle District Court of Pennsylvania is worth noting–for both drillers AND landowners. A landowner in Susquehanna County, PA sold some land already under lease to a new landowner/rights owner. Neither the new landowner nor the previous landowner informed the driller of the change in ownership. The time came to renew the lease and under the terms of the contract the driller sent payment–but didn’t know about the change in ownership–so the driller sent the payment to the previous owner. The new landowner used that faux pas as a legal excuse to sue the driller to break the contract. The new landowner claimed the paperwork filed (not the full lease but an abstract) didn’t contain mention of informing the driller. In other words, the landowner used the “we didn’t know” excuse. The judge disagreed and said, a) the lease itself clearly outlines the responsibilities of the old/new landowners to inform the driller, b) there is a reasonable expectation for the new landowner to perform due diligence in seeking out a copy of the original lease to know that. Therefore the new landowner is still under lease. Here’s an outline of the case, with names…
Last December Pennsylvania’s felony-indicted Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, brought a lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy, Anadarko and Williams accusing them of, among other things, royalty fraud (see