Sham “Study” from Johns Hopkins Says Fracking Makes Athsma Worse
The anti-frackers at the Johns Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health are out with another bought-and-paid-for (by anti-drillers) “study” that implies the presence of fracking in Pennsylvania leads to causing or making worse asthma attacks. You may recall the same group of antis pushed out a study last October that supposedly shows fracking leads to premature births (see New Junk Science Claims PA Fracking Leads to Premature Births). That study was quickly debunked (see EID’s Devastating Critique of PA Premature Birth “Study” and Another Devastating Critique of Fracking/Premature Birth “Study”). This newest study, “Association Between Unconventional Natural Gas Development in the Marcellus Shale and Asthma Exacerbations,” evaluates thousands of health records from the Geisinger Clinic in PA, looking for patterns between people showing up with asthmatic symptoms and correlating it to how close they live to shale wells being drilled. The incredible thing about this latest run at smearing the miracle of fracking is this: the authors (most of them students) admit in their own study they only have theories, no proof that ties fracking to asthma. You read that right–there is no proof, no smoking gun. Only wild theories that are unsupported by the data. Yet fawning (and frankly stupid) reporters at places like the AP, PBS StateImpact Pennsylvania and USA Today are trumpeting this “study” as scientific proof of a link that fracking kills ya. It seems the Johns Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health doesn’t produce science–it produces politics dressed up as science…
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Yesterday the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) released an updated version of an online GIS (i.e. mapping) application that allows users to learn information and download reports about oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. The DEP also released a new video tutorial (embedded below) that explains how to use the 
Some interesting Marcellus-related items were included in the recently adopted Pennsylvania state budget that have largely flown under the radar. There are also a few things that weren’t in the budget bill–previously intended to be part of it–that didn’t survive the process. At the top of the list is lack of a severance tax. But right behind that (for us) is that a gross receipts tax on natural gas use, which we thought would be part of the final deal, was not. As MDN previously reported, a gross receipts tax taxes end users of natural gas, in essence targeting low-income households (see 
Last Friday MDN brought you the really big news that Sunoco Logistics Partners had won a major appeals court case that recognizes them as a public utility in Pennsylvania with the right to use eminent domain to build the Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline (see 
In the past we’ve been pretty critical of the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO). It claims to provide revenue projections for use in the state budget process along with “impartial and timely analysis of fiscal, economic and budgetary issues to assist Commonwealth residents and the General Assembly in their evaluation of policy decisions.” It’s been our observation the IFO is populated with partisan Democrats. However, we have to acknowledge their prediction of impact fee revenue from 2015 was spot on. Earlier this year the IFO predicted that when the dust had settled, the impact fee would generate $185.5 million (see “Independent” Fiscal Office Says PA Impact Fee Revenue Drops 17%). When the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) finally reported the actual numbers, it turned out to be $188 million (see 
Last year Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf completely botched his first-ever budget, by holding out for nine months seeking a Marcellus-killing severance tax as payback to teachers’ unions that helped elect him (see 
In July 2012 MDN told you about a one-year study of air quality in and around Chartiers Township in Washington County, PA being conducted by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (see 
PA’s very liberal Governor, Tom Wolf, has been obstinate in demanding onerous new drilling rules for the conventional, as well as unconventional (shale) drilling industry since he took office. Reworked drilling rules were done and ready to go under previous Governor, Tom Corbett. Then Corbett lost to Wolf, and Wolf demanded to change common sense rules everyone had already agreed to (see 
This pipeline project has been, until now, completely off our radar screen. As pipeline projects go, it’s pretty small. But building even a single square inch of new pipeline, or expanding a compressor station, is anathema to anti-fossil fuel nutters. So we expect this project will be in the headlines starting this week, with a pair open house meetings in the Philadelphia area (and one in Delaware) where the project will get built. The project is being built by Eastern Shore Natural Gas and is called the 2017 System Expansion project. In March 2015, Eastern Shore ran a non-binding open season to see if customers want more natural gas in the Delmarva Peninsula area (includes most of Delaware and portions of Maryland and Virginia). It looks like Eastern Shore’s customers expressed enough interest that they plan to move forward with an expansion project that will bring new sources of natgas from an interconnection Eastern Shore has with the mighty TETCo (Texas Eastern Company) pipeline near Philadelphia. Below we have details on the expansion project, and details for the open house meetings scheduled for this week in PA and DE…
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed a lengthy comment with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week regarding the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project (full copy below). The EPA said, in a nutshell, that more studies should be done. The EPA said the pipeline could have “significant adverse environmental impacts.” They also said alternate routes should be considered. A few things to know about the EPA’s filing: First and foremost, the EPA is treated like any other individual or organization who files comments on a project with FERC. That is, the EPA’s comments will receive no special treatment or consideration. Second, the only value in EPA’s comments is publicity for anti-pipeline nutters. Third, the “alternate routes” the EPA professes to prefer have already been considered, thoroughly, and discarded by FERC. So this is a lot of smoke and noise and mirrors–and nothing else…
MDN has previously reported on efforts in Pennsylvania to substitute a so-called “gross receipts tax” (GRT) on natural gas for a severance tax as a way to raise millions of dollars for Democrats’ voracious appetite to spend money (see 
Pennsylvania legislators went home for the long Fourth of July holiday weekend without a final budget in place. The clock is ticking. The spending part of the budget–some $31.5 billion (a massive amount) has been agreed to by both the Republican-controlled legislature and Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf. However, the budget needs to find another $1.5 billion to fund it–the shortfall in the current plan. Wolf wants “sustainable revenue”–by which he means permanent tax increases on something. Wolf’s preference is to slap a Marcellus Shale-killing severance tax on the natural gas industry. That’s a non-starter for the Republican-controlled legislature–people who actually know how economics work. It does appear the two sides are close to getting the budget passed. This week should tell the tale of how the state plans to raise enough money to bridge the shortfall…