Caving on PA Severance Tax Renamed as a “Pivot”
Funny how we euphemize things so often–making up words and using alternative words instead of just saying the honest thing. You find it happening a lot in the political world–like right now in Pennsylvania where the media says PA is likely to “pivot” on the issue of a severance tax on Marcellus Shale gas. According to “insiders.” Pivot actually means “cave” or “throw in the towel” or “admit defeat.” If Republicans allow it to happen, that’s what they’re doing. “Insiders” means “rat-fink leakers”–people who don’t have the guts to go on the record. Some Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) like Sen. Edwin Erickson, R-Delaware County, want to steal the hard-earned money from shale drillers and give it away to those who haven’t earned it–teacher’s unions. No where in the PA budget debate do we see the option of doing with less–like what happens in the real world with real budgets. Instead, the philosophy of PA’s Dems and RINOs is tax a single industry that’s producing money and give it to another industry (Big Education) that vacuums up money like a Hoover…
Read More “Caving on PA Severance Tax Renamed as a “Pivot””



Range Resources built an open-air frack wastewater and brine impoundment in Amwell Township (Washington County), PA in 2009–the Jon Day Impoundment. At the time, they installed a monitoring system under the impoundment to alert them (and the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection) in case the impoundment–essentially a big pond with a rubber liner–sprung a leak. The monitoring system included 4-inch perforated pipes under the impoundment located inside trenches of gravel. The theory was/is if anything leaks, it will hit one of those pipes and come out the end. According to the DEP the monitoring system was “over and above” DEP requirements at the time. Unfortunately, the monitoring system somewhere along the way failed and the impoundment sprung a leak and now we have some 15,000 tons of “contaminated” soil which has nearly all been removed from the site…