Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw, Majority Chair of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, is hammering ICF International, a consultant hired by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The DEP has paid $874,000 (so far) to ICF for research relating to “climate change.” ICF is providing research used by the DEP to justify Gov. Wolf’s harebrained idea to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax scheme meant to drive natgas electric plants out of existence in the state. All in the name of saving Mom Earth. Ludicrous. ICF, supposedly impartial, appears to be anything but according to Yaw.
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Category: Statewide PA
Permit Fee to Drill PA Shale Well Officially Went Up 250% on Aug 1
The dirty deed is finally done. It now officially costs more for a new shale permit to drill in Pennsylvania than in any other state in the country. In Ohio, it costs drillers $5,500 to file for and receive a permit to drill a new shale well. In West Virginia, the cost is $10,150. In Pennsylvania, it used to cost drillers $5,000 for a new shale well permit. As of Saturday, the price went up 250% to $12,500.
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FERC Begins Enviro Assessment for Williams’ PennEast Competitor
Over a year ago, in March 2019, MDN told you about a new Williams plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 760 MMcf/d (originally 1 billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see Williams Announces Transco Competitor to PennEast Pipe in NEPA). The project is called the Regional Energy Access expansion project.
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Penn State Determines Dosing for Anti-Farting Medicine for Cows
We include this story on MDN because (a) it’s Friday and sometimes we get a little giddy and have fun on Fridays, and (b) to illustrate the lengths crazies will go to reduce the amount of “fugitive methane” that “escapes” into the atmosphere. Agriculture (farm animals) produce huge amounts of fugitive methane–a fact that the climate loons grudgingly have to deal with if they want to keep up the false pretense that the planet is catastrophically warming. So every now and again the crazies come out with truly insane plans to capture, or in this case restrict, the amount of methane cows fart and burp. Penn State is all proud of itself that it has determined the optimum “dosing” of a really big antacid tablet for Bessie…
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Radicals Make Final Push to Strangle PA O&G Using Emissions Reg
Radical environmentalists (far outside the mainstream) are making one final push to pressure the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to expand an already onerous new regulation it is planning to implement. Last December the DEP’s Environmental Quality Board (EQB) approved new regulations that supposedly will capture every last molecule of stray methane that leaks from shale drilling operations (see PA DEP Goes WAY Too Far in Approving New Methane Regulations). The new regs are unnecessary and will shut down even more shale drilling operations in the state.
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PA Small Business Compliance Advisory Ctte Votes NO on Carbon Tax
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has a number of committees under its umbrella. Volunteers from business, non-profit groups and other sectors sit on these committees in an effort to provide helpful feedback to the department from the people who must live under the regulations (sometimes onerous) the DEP cooks up. The Small Business Compliance Advisory Committee (SBCAC) is one such committee. SBCAC has just voted against Gov. Wolf’s cockamamie plan to tax “carbon” from gas-fired electric plants.
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Victory Lap! Gov. Wolf Signs Tax Break Bill for New Petchem Plants
It’s time for a victory lap. Pennsylvania Republicans, with the help of some brave Democrats (and former Democrats), passed and convinced Gov. Wolf to sign a bill into law that will grant tax breaks to companies willing to build brand new petrochemical plants in the Keystone State–plants that use huge quantities of Marcellus Shale gas. Wolf signed the bill yesterday, after vetoing a similar bill earlier this year. The normally chatty Wolf press operation barely mentioned his signature on the bill.
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PA AG Colludes with Big Green to Double Down re Anti-Fracking
Pennsylvania’s hard-left Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, is doubling down on the fraudulent so-called grand jury report that bashes the state’s Marcellus Shale industry. Yesterday afternoon Shapiro spoke on a webinar sponsored by leftist fringe group PennEnvironment. Shapiro once again lied about fracking chemical transparency and threatened he will indict more shale companies. Shapiro is off the reservation and out of control.
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FERC Approves Williams Leidy South & NFG FM100 Pipeline Projects
In December 2018 Williams announced a new project to increase capacity along the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) in PA by an extra 582,400 dekatherms (582 million cubic feet) per day. Williams officially filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the “Leidy South Project” in August 2019 (see Williams Files Leidy South Project with FERC to Expand PA Transco). Great news: On Friday, FERC approved the Leidy South Project. FERC also approved a second project that works hand-in-glove with the Leidy project: National Fuel Gas Company’s FM100 project.
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PA House Votes to Pass Resurrected Petchem Bill, Wolf to Sign
Yesterday MDN told you the full Pennsylvania State Senate, with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, voted on and passed a bill to grant tax break incentives to huge petrochemical plants willing to build new facilities in PA–facilities that will use Marcellus Shale methane (see PA Senate Votes to Pass Resurrected Petchem Bill in Record Time). Later in the day yesterday, the full House wasted no time in passing the same bill–by a whopping 163-38. Gov. Wolf said as soon as the bill hits his desk he’s going to sign it. Victory!
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PA Senate Votes to Pass Resurrected Petchem Bill in Record Time
Wow! That was fast! Last week we brought you the rumor that a bill to allow incentives for petrochemical plants willing to build new facilities in Pennsylvania (generating hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of investment in the state) appears to be back on after the bill was previously vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf earlier this year (see Bill to Bring Cracker-Type Investment to Northeast PA Resurrected). The radicals at PennFuture sounded the alarm over the weekend that House Bill (HB) 1100 is back on and that Wolf is ready to sign a revised version (see PennFuture Wages War Against Fossil Fuel Jobs in PA re HB 1100). Actually, the bill has been renamed to HB 732 and it already passed a vote by the full PA Senate yesterday!
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Revisiting the PA AG Royalty Case Against Chesapeake Energy
It’s time to revisit a long-festering royalty lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko Petroleum filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office. The case has been through several layers of courts and finally ended up at the PA Supreme Court last fall (see PA Supremes to Consider Long-Running Chesapeake Royalty Lawsuit). The lawsuit hinges on the answer to this question: Are landowners/royalty owners the buyers or the sellers in cases of royalty leases?
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PennFuture Wages War Against Fossil Fuel Jobs in PA re HB 1100
Last week we brought you the rumor that a bill to allow incentives for petrochemical plants willing to build new facilities in Pennsylvania (generating hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of investment in the state) appears to be back on after the bill was vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf earlier this year (see Bill to Bring Cracker-Type Investment to Northeast PA Resurrected). The radicals at PennFuture, a profoundly partisan/leftist organization fueled with Big Green donations, is raising the alarm that House Bill (HB) 1100 is back on and that Wolf is ready to sign a revised version.
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Leftist “Investors” Demand PA DEP Clamp Down on Methane Leaks
Last December the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Environmental Quality Board approved onerous new regulations that supposedly will capture every last molecule of stray methane that leaks from shale drilling operations (see PA DEP Goes WAY Too Far in Approving New Methane Regulations). The new regs are unnecessary and will shut down even more shale drilling operations in the state. Perhaps sensing the DEP is wavering on adopting these nonsense regs, a group of woke lefty investors representing trillions of investment dollars are pressuring the DEP to get the new regs live. More leftist bullying.
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Bill to Bring Cracker-Type Investment to Northeast PA Resurrected
In April 2019, Pennsylvania State Rep. Mike Turzai, Speaker of the House (who has since resigned and left), along with a group of conservative Republicans, announced a plan for the future of PA (see PA Republicans Launch “Energize PA” to Counter Wolf’s “Restore PA”). Called Energize PA, the plan as codified in eight bills would “make it easier for companies to get environmental permits, encourage development on abandoned industrial sites, and make it cheaper to run natural gas lines to businesses.” One of the eight bills is House Bill (HB) 1100, a bill offering a tax incentive, a reduction in taxes, IF a company builds a new petrochemical plant in the state–particularly in the northeast “dry gas” area of the state.
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Huge Bipartisan Majority in PA House Votes to Block Carbon Tax
Yesterday the Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted 130 to 71 (with overwhelming bipartisan support) to pass House Bill (HB) 2025 which would block Gov. Wolf’s attempt to force PA into a northeast carbon tax scheme. We’ve written plenty about Wolf’s plan to force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI (see Gov. Wolf Goes Bonkers: EO Destroying Gas-Fired Elec, Carbon Tax).
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