New Bill Trims PA Gov’s Control over Environmental Quality Board
Republican members of the Pennsylvania legislature are tired of radical leftists like PA Gov. Tom Wolf and his Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) John Quigley running environmental policies in the state like dictators. So they’re attempting to remove some of the power they have by changing the Environmental Quality Board (EQB). The EQB is part of the DEP. Its role is to adopt new regulations proffered by the DEP. Essentially it’s a watchdog to ensure new regulations don’t become too onerous. But the EQB has been co-opted by Quigley and Wolf–witness the recent EQB vote to adopt onerous new regulations by Quigley & co. known as Chapter 78 and 78a of PA’s oil and gas law (see PA Board Adopts New Drilling Regs, PIOGA Blasts DEP “Deceptive”). So PA State Rep. Chris Dush is about to float a new bill and is looking for co-sponsors of the bill, a bill that will remove the DEP Sec. as the Chairman of the Board for the EQB. It also expands membership of the board to 23 members (up from 20) and doubles the number of members appointed by the House and Senate from four to eight. In other words, it’s time to reshuffle the EQB deck and give the executive branch less of say on the board…
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There was an explosion and fire in Spectra Energy’s Texas Eastern Transmission’s (TETCO) “Delmont Line 27” pipeline last Friday (see 
The muckety-mucks from Shell held their quarterly earnings phone call with analysts yesterday–and there is what we consider big news to report coming from that call. In response to a question from an analyst, Shell’s Chief Financial Officer, Simon Henry, commented there are four major “chemicals” projects currently under consideration by Shell. He also said a decision on the PA cracker plant project planned in Beaver County will likely be the first decision to be made because of “the timing of certain commitments that are already in place.” He added these glowing words about the PA cracker: “It’s an excellent project…[that] provides quite some portfolio resilience relative to the rest of the opportunities.” He later said “It’s a very strong and robust project.” If the price of oil were higher than the current $40, pulling the trigger on the PA cracker would be “a very easy decision.” When you read his comments, it’s hard to miss the enthusiasm at the highest echelons inside Shell…
Something noteworthy has happened in western Pennsylvania and (so far) local media has chosen not to cover it. So MDN is happy to break the following story about South Fayette Township in Allegheny County (near Pittsburgh). South Fayette is one of seven PA towns that sued the state after the Act 13 law was enacted in 2012 (see 
We have more evidence that Shell’s Monaca (Beaver County), PA cracker plant is now a go. MDN previously told you that Shell has already spent upward of half a billion dollars out of the projected $2-$3 billion it will take to build the project (see 
You can count on one hand the number of cases where fracking a shale well over top an active underground fault (never a good idea) has caused a detectable earthquake. Can we now add one more case in western PA? Officials from the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection are investigating whether or not fracking by Hilcorp in well in Lawrence County, PA caused two 1.9 earthquakes in the area on Monday. Just so you know, you can’t feel a 1.9 earthquake on the surface. The only way you know of such an earthquake is through special monitors maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). A football stadium full of fans stomping their feet at the same time can (and has) caused earthquakes greater than 1.0 (see 
Not only is PA’s Gov. Wolf stubborn, he’s stupid too. Dangerously so. Wolf and those he has surrounded himself with are hellbent on enacting a severance tax on the Marcellus industry in the state, as a way of paying back teachers’ unions for their support of him in the last election. Wolf, with the aid of willing liars in mainstream media, continuously repeat the same lie: PA is the only oil and gas state without a severance tax. They intentionally ignore the impact fee and corporate income tax on drillers in PA that together adds up to about the same rate of taxation as a severance tax in states like Texas and Louisiana. For the second year running Wolf has proposed a severance tax–this time RAISING it to a supposed rate of 6.5%. Yes, the new tax would allow drillers to deduct whatever impact fees they would still have to pay. The state’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) has run the numbers and compared Wolf’s proposal to other states. You know what they found? Wolf’s proposed severance tax would have an effective rate of 8.5%, not 6.5%. It would be the highest such severance tax in the country! Some 54% higher than the effective severance tax rate in either Texas or Louisiana. So tell us, how many drillers will stick around PA and continue to drill with a tax like that? Can you say “ghost town”?…
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) said yesterday they will launch an “unprecedented expansion” of air monitoring near compressor stations and shale wells in the Marcellus. DEP Sec. John Quigley said the DEP will add 10 new monitoring sites to its existing network of 27 sites. Part of the $1.56 million it will take to install and maintain the sites for five years is coming from taxpayers’ federal government pocket, from a Federal Clean Air Act grant. What does Quigley expect to do with the data they collect from this effort? On a teleconference call he said, “We have no expectations here. The ambition is to get a more comprehensive dataset.” There’s a fine expenditure of taxpayer’s money–spend it with no expectations! Here’s the low down on the latest DEP boondoggle…
Just a few years ago Halliburton, the second largest oilfield services company in the world, employed 600 people in its operation center located in Lycoming County, PA. Today? There are 40 working there. Some 200 of Halliburton’s Lycoming employees were laid off last Friday. Lycoming County is relatively rural with the city of Williamsport as its county seat. Losing 560 jobs, 200 of them in one go, is a huge blow to the area. We grieve with those who have lost their jobs–and with their families who depended on those jobs…
Two weeks ago MDN told you that Rice Energy had offered a “stalking horse” bid of $200 million for the shale assets of now-bankrupt coal company Alpha Natural Resources (see 
How do you prove a negative? You can’t. But that’s the (illegal) demand Penn Township (near Pittsburgh) is placing on Apex Energy. Penn Township’s zoning board has denied Apex permits to begin building a well pad for an eventual nine wells–wells that are fully permitted and permissioned by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The Penn Township ordinance “states that drillers have to prove that the drilling site won’t violate Penn Township citizens’ rights to clean air and water.” Apex provided air and water studies showing possible risks from accidental spills, etc.–along with how they will prevent such things from happening. But the zoning board was tone deaf and rejected it. So what’s next? We’ve seen this movie before. Last year a group of anti-drillers took Apex to court to stop drilling on two wells, with the town backing them. Apex’s lawyers roared that the company was losing $70K per day by not drilling, threatening to sue. The town backed down, and Apex drilled the wells…
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), charged with overseeing potential impacts on the Delaware River and the various tributaries that feed it, has once again stepped outside of its legal bounds. The PennEast Pipeline is a $1 billion, 118-mile pipeline from Luzerne County, PA to Mercer County, NJ–part of it through the Delaware River Basin area. In 2014 the DRBC tried to tell PennEast and its sponsors that the pipeline will need their approval before it can be built (see