PA Dem Senator Calls for “Study” to Address DEP Permit Delays
A Pennsylvania Senator from Wilkes-Barre, John Yudichak (Democrat) has floated a “memoranda” among his Senate colleagues asking them to join him in sponsoring a resolution (copy below) for an “independent performance review” of the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and its shale permitting program. Since Tom Wolf assumed office as governor of Pennsylvania in January 2015, the DEP has been in a downward spiral when it comes to the speed with which they approve permits for the Marcellus Shale industry. The DEP has a policy of issuing erosion and sedimentation permits 14 days from the date of application. These types of permits are common and necessary when building roads, well pads, etc. Lately it has taken the DEP 250 days to issue those permits! Permits related to drilling wells are supposed to take no more than 45 days. Those permits now average 93 days. The DEP is hopelessly backlogged–and it’s getting worse. When PA’s traitorous Republican Senate sold out and signed on to a Marcellus Shale severance tax back in July, the Senate also approved (as part of the budget bill) fixes to speed up the permitting process (see PA Senate’s “Olive Branch” of “Relaxed Regulations” for Drillers). Senators included a provision to have third party contractors–people outside of the DEP–review applications at the DEP, including permits for oil and gas drilling, when the DEP can’t review those applications in a timely manner. There’s also a provision that certain permits, like those granted to drillers for sediment and erosion, will automatically be granted if the DEP drags its feet and doesn’t grant the permit by the current, specified deadline (45 days, with a possible 15 day extension). Since DEP can’t seem to fix its own mess, the Republican Senate is willing to “lend a hand” to help them get it done. Democrats are adamantly opposed to the plan. Enter Yudichak and his plan to “study” the situation. This is nothing more than a typical delay and stall tactic. Appear to be addressing the problem when you really aren’t. To which we say–“too much, too little, too late” Sen. Yudichak. Your guy (Wolf) has had nearly three years to fix it and he hasn’t–it’s time to let the Republican legislature get the job done…
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It’s funny how mainstream media–and liberal Democrats–can turn on a dime. It was just a few days ago we read an AP story endlessly regurgitated across PA about how the PA budget fight had turned “ugly” and “personal” (see 
Bad news for the Sisters of the Corn and the radicals at Lancaster Against Pipelines. On Friday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted Williams permission to begin construction on Atlantic Sunrise, a $3 billion, 198-mile pipeline project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County. Last week the Sierra Club and a mish mash of other nutball groups begged FERC to delay issuing an order that Williams can commence with construction, claiming FERC’s delay in considering a rehearing delayed a lawsuit and the lawsuit hasn’t had enough time to work it’s way through the court system (see 
It certainly isn’t journalism. It’s one-sided, anti-fossil fuel advocacy. And it’s profoundly biased. StateImpact Pennsylvania, a Public Broadcasting initiative that’s funded, in part, with taxpayer money, is about to expand by adding another three propagandists to the three it has now. Joy. Four PBS organizations, led by WITF in Harrisburg, PA, is receiving a $652,902 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to expand its propaganda operation and write more anti-drilling, anti-pipeline stories. Stories that are one-sided. Aren’t you glad your taxpayer dollars go to fund this “reporting?” They’ll throw in a little global warming hysteria, just to spice it up…
Republicans hold majorities in both the Pennsylvania Senate and the Pennsylvania House. As is happening on the national level, the Republican Party in PA is also rife with establishment, left-leaning members who are not in their positions to benefit their constituents and all residents of the Keystone State, but are there to feather their own nests. Swamp dwellers. They are Republicans In Name Only (RINOs). One such RINO is PA Rep. Kate Harper, a “Republican” from Montgomery County–a Philadelphia suburb. Harper has been in the House since Jan. 2, 2001 (16 years, long past time she was voted out of office). Harper proposed an insane severance tax as part of this year’s budget deal. It’s not her first time at the trough. Harper has been proposing a severance tax for years (see 
According to expert analysis by the legal beagles at the Blank Rome law firm, a recent decision by the Superior Court of Pennsylvania disregards established precedent law and has created a new law in PA, possibly “leaving lessees [drillers] in limbo, possibly giving unscrupulous lessors [landowners] a unilateral tool to terminate oil and gas leases, and ultimately harming both lessors and lessees in the process.” In Montgomery v. R. Oil & Gas Enterprises, two (out of three) judges ruled that oil and gas leases could be severed (terminated) both “vertically” and “horizontally” by unilateral actions of the landowner. In this case “vertical” means shale or other rock layers under the ground, and “horizontal” means surface ownership. As with most things legal, this is a complicated case with a lot of history we won’t attempt to recount it chapter and verse. If we can boil it all down, the judges found that a landowner who had purchased a piece of property with an old lease that contained terms for shallow rock layers and deeper rock layers, could, unilaterally, terminate one aspect of that lease (in this case the shallow layer portion of the lease) while keeping the other aspect of the lease intact (the deeper layers, already drilled and producing). The Blank Rome analysis below does a deep dive into the case, frankly ripping the decision to shreds, and postulates the theory that it may lead to cases in which a landowner with a decades-old lease in which the shallow layers are held by production can separate and convey the deeper layers to a family member or family trust, and then terminate the deeper layer lease, re-releasing it to a different driller…
In July when the Pennsylvania Senate passed their awful budget bill that includes a variety of new taxes, including a new severance tax on the Marcellus industry, they also slipped in Section 1610 which changes established lease law with respect to oil and gas wells that no longer produce anything (see 
Last week the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued the final permit needed by Williams to begin construction on Atlantic Sunrise, a $3 billion, 198-mile pipeline project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County (see 
Well they did it. Yesterday at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), representatives for the five voting members voted to begin the process of formalizing a permanent ban on fracking in the Delaware River Basin. It wasn’t unexpected, but it was hotly contested–by both sides in the debate. As we’ve previously chronicled, the DRBC is composed of five voting members: the governors of Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, New Jersey, along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The governors all sent people to represent them at the meeting, with clear instructions. The three Democrat governors–Tom Wolf (PA), Andrew Cuomo (NY), and John Carney (DE) all voted in favor of a resolution to take the next step in the process of a permanent ban, voting to adopt a draft resolution MDN previously shared (see 
Three cheers for Pennsylvania House Republicans. Hip hip, hooray! House Republicans did the near impossible–they held the line against a cockamamie plan to raise all sorts of taxes, including slapping a severance tax on the Marcellus gas industry (on top of the existing impact tax). You may recall our story about a group of hardworking Republican House members who, during the recent recess, did a masterful forensic accounting job of locating existing money sitting idle in a variety of programs and departments–money that can used to plug a deficit in the budget this year (see 
Following yesterday’s vote by the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to take the first step in a permanent ban on fracking in the Delaware River Basin (DRB), reaction from those who support drilling was swift. The American Petroleum Institute issued a statement saying, among other things, that the DRBC’s intention to permanently ban fracking in the DRB is “bad public policy.” More than a few Pennsylvania legislators took issue with PA Gov. Wolf’s vote to endorse a permanent frack ban. Three ranking State Senators–Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, and Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Chair Gene Yaw, ripped into Wolf with a joint press release yesterday, saying they “strongly objected” to Wolf’s vote. The three said a permanent ban on natural gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin is “arbitrary, short-sighted and a blow to economic development, job-creation and landowner’s rights.” We appreciate their support. However, those same three Senators recently sold out the gas industry when they voted for a severance tax. They were part of the high-tax cabal that made the job of the House that much harder (thank God the House passed a no-severance-tax budget yesterday, see today’s companion story). While we appreciate the Senators’ support on the DRB frack ban issue, their bloviating against Wolf on the frack ban vote doesn’t remove the stain of their betrayal of the gas industry in voting for the severance tax. All three Senators need to go at the next primary…
Here’s a surprise: Big Green mouthpiece PBS StateImpact Pennsylvania is dishing some dirt on one of their own–PA Gov. Tom Wolf. We’ve been closely following the developing situation with the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) finally coming out of the closet as an extended arm of radical Big Green group Delaware Riverkeeper. The DRBC will vote (today) on beginning the process to permanently ban fracking in the Delaware River Basin (DRB), which will prevent landowners in Wayne and Pike counties (PA) from accessing the bountiful shale gas under their land (see our article yesterday, 
Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline is primed and ready to begin construction after receiving its very last required permit from Pennsylvania–an Air Quality Plan Approval for air emissions related to construction activities in Lancaster County. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued the Air Quality permit last Friday. You may recall Atlantic Sunrise, a $3 billion, 198-mile pipeline project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County, received water crossing permits from the DEP and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a few weeks ago (see 
The Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee amended a bill yesterday that will rename PA’s impact fee to a “severance tax,” a move which really ticked off the high taxers in the legislature, and anti-drillers (most of them one and the same). The PA House came back into session yesterday and 25 House members (most of them Democrats) made a move to get a vote on a bill with a 3.5% severance tax. The Republican majority on the committee flipped things around and replaced that measure with a vote to rename the impact fee–as a way of illustrating that the industry IS ALREADY TAXED, JUST LIKE A SEVERANCE TAX, even if you don’t call it one. So, let’s just call it one! Brilliant! Of course there are differences between a severance tax and an impact fee–actually the fee is a better revenue generator than a severance tax. However, the point remains: the industry is already paying a high tax, and to slap another on top of it is suicide. Republicans on the committee got their point across…
Ridgetop Capital Partners, founded in 2007 and headquartered in the Pittsburgh area, is a private institutional investment firm focused mainly on the oil and gas space. That is, they raise money from rich people (and businesses) and invest that money in projects which they closely watch and influence, hoping to make their money back with a generous interest rate. A LOT of private money funds oil and gas development–there is nothing new or novel about Ridgetop. However, what is new and novel is that the company has just closed on another round of fundraising–chasing $200 million through the door–which they will now use to buy natural gas mineral rights (i.e. leases) in the Marcellus/Utica. The company previously invested ~$130 million in our region’s shale, snapping up ownership in over 30,000 acres (most, perhaps all of it, in joint ventures with major M-U drillers). Where will Ridgetop likely invest to buy new acreage? They’ve given us a big clue…
We’ve written plenty about Philadelphia-area RINO (Republican In Name Only) State Rep. Gene DiGirolamo. In May DiGirolamo introduced yet another severance tax bill (see