PA DEP Issues 6th Update to State’s Bizarre Climate Action Plan
Every three years, the Pennsylvania Dept of Environmental Protection (DEP) is required, by state law, to produce an update to the state’s so-called Climate Action Plan. The fact that they have such a plan boggles the mind—a plan to address global warming (the operative word being “global”) from one state. To be fair, many states and even large cities also have such plans. These plans are all arrogant nonsense. No entity, especially not a single state, can do a darned thing to affect the temperature of Mom Earth, but they pretend they can. And they use the existence of such plans as a manipulative political tool to force policy changes that inflict significant economic harm on their citizens, all in the name of saving the planet. The wackadoodle left has brainwashed our children into believing we’ll die if we don’t give up fossil fuel use. The DEP recently released its triennial “dump fossil fuels” update, and it’s as crazy as ever. Read More “PA DEP Issues 6th Update to State’s Bizarre Climate Action Plan”
Corporate welfare—the transfer of taxpayers’ money to businesses—is ugly, no matter if the money goes to large or small businesses. True to form, Pennsylvania’s Democrat Governor, Josh Shapiro, and his political operative at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), “Acting” Secretary Jessica Shirley, yesterday launched a program to try and spread nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer’s money from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (Biden’s Green New Scam) to businesses large and small in the Keystone State. They euphemistically call the program RISE PA (Reducing Industrial Sector Emissions in Pennsylvania). It should be called “Spread Taxpayer Dollars to Buy Votes” (STD BV). 
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has found some willing accomplices among PA House Democrats to introduce six bills to implement Shapiro’s nutty, very partisan energy plan, called the “Lightning Plan.” Shapiro claims his so-called Lightning Plan is “a comprehensive, all-of-the-above energy plan to secure Pennsylvania’s energy future.” Except his plan puts the thumb of the government on the scales in favor of wind, solar, and hydro, and purposely disadvantages natural gas. Our observation: If it takes six (or more) bills to adopt his energy plan, something is seriously wrong. 
The rumor mill was right. In February, MDN brought you the juicy rumor that Olympus Energy, founded in 2012 as Huntley & Huntley Energy Exploration (a company that drills exclusively in the Pittsburgh suburbs), was being shopped for sale by its main financial backer (see 
In January, MDN reported that the PJM Interconnection electrical grid operator, covering Pennsylvania (along with all or parts of 12 other states and the District of Columbia), had caved to the political demands of PA Gov. Josh Shapiro to artificially cap the prices of the next capacity auction scheduled for July 2025 (see 
The Baker Hughes U.S. national rig count recovered somewhat last week, adding two rigs after losing seven rigs two weeks ago. The U.S. count now stands at 585 active rigs. There was big news for the Marcellus/Utica. The combined M-U rig count was 38 last week. That is the highest M-U combined count in almost one year—since May of 2024. The Marcellus added the one rig it lost the prior week and now stands at 25 rigs across the three M-U states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. Rigs focused on the Utica added two, and now stands at 13 rigs. PA was a big winner, adding two rigs, now with 18 active rigs — the highest number it has had since last August. However, OH also added two rigs and now operates 12, the most active rigs in the Buckeye State in over a year. 
In early April, MDN brought you the exciting news that THE largest gas-fired power plant in the country, along with a MASSIVE data center complex, will be built at a former coal-fired power plant site in Indiana County, PA (see 
This is shameful. A Pennsylvania government agency, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), has aligned itself with an extreme leftwing organization to attack the PJM Interconnection electric grid in a bid to paper over the failed policies of PA Governor Josh Shapiro. In particular, so-called “Acting” Secretary of the DEP, Jessica Shirley, has proven she is no longer fit to lead the agency. The PA Senate should refuse to confirm her and bounce her out immediately. Shirley aligned herself with the radical left-wing organization called Evergreen Action to promote a sham/fake “report” by a well-known Democrat organization called Synapse Energy Economics (that works exclusively for left-wing groups) attacking PJM with false claims that it has a “broken” electric generation project approval process. 
Democrat politicians, like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, are predictable. Shapiro, Murphy, and other Dem governors in the PJM Interconnection electric grid region, which includes all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., have ratcheted up their rhetoric blaming PJM for higher electricity prices, even though it is their own policies that are driving electric prices higher! Always blame someone else for your shortcomings; that’s their motto. 
A month ago, MDN told you about a meeting held in northeastern Pennsylvania between newly-appointed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Congressman Rob Bresnahan, several state elected officials, as well as labor and others (see 
Permitting in Pennsylvania, overseen by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), has been a hot mess for years. A Chapter 102 Erosion and Sedimentation permit sometimes takes two, three, or even six months for approval — instead of the policy-mandated 14 days. According to a DEP press release from yesterday, that’s all behind us. Last November, DEP Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley and Gov. Josh Shapiro said the agency had *eliminated* the backlog for oil and gas permits (see 
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB) was scheduled to consider accepting a petition by radical green groups, including the Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project, to “study” the issue of increasing setbacks for shale drilling so far it would ban ALL new Marcellus/Utica drilling in the Keystone State. Instead of voting to accept the petition, EQB commissioners voted 16 to 3 to table the petition for a future meeting. No doubt this matter will cycle around again, but we can all breathe a sigh of relief for now. 
Last year, radical environmental groups (including the Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project) petitioned the state Environmental Quality Board (EQB), asking the board to amend 25 Pa. Code Chapter 78a by increasing “setbacks” for oil and gas well drilling to a minimum of 3,281 feet from any building or water wells (5,280 feet from hospitals and schools), and 750 feet from any river, creek, or mud puddle (i.e., surface waters). Such an increase in setbacks would stop ALL new shale drilling in the state, which is the goal of these radicals. In March of this year, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), controlled by Josh Shapiro, recommended to the EQB that it accept and seriously consider the proposed rulemaking (see