PA Has 2 Years to Update Methane Regs Following Biden EPA Edict
EPA Administrator Michael Regan used a considerable amount of fossil energy and emitted billows of carbon dioxide to jet over to Dubai to participate in the COP28 confab. At that event, Regan released his agency’s latest attempt to illegally regulate the oil and gas industry (see Bidenistas Unleash Hellscape of U.S. Methane Regs at COP28). Regan released a final rule that was “two years in the making” to force the U.S. oil and gas industry to cut methane emissions by using budget-busting new technologies and onerous (frequent) inspections. A long-time energy attorney says the new regulations are likely to be challenged in court. The only saving grace for states like Pennsylvania is that the environmental agencies in those states will get two years to draft regs to comply with the EPA’s onerous edict.
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Pennsylvania assesses an impact fee (PA’s version of a severance tax) on shale drillers, raising revenues that are paid to local municipalities and to the black hole of Harrisburg politicians. Yesterday, the PA Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) issued an estimate for how much the impact tax will raise this year, to be distributed next year. The IFO says it thinks, based on the price of low natural gas and number of new and existing wells, that PA will generate $174.0 million from the impact tax in 2023, a decrease of $104.8 million (38%) from 2022. What the heck happened?
The Energy Workforce & Technology Council, based in Houston, TX, is the national trade association for the global energy technology and services sector. The Council reports jobs in the O&G sector increased in November, adding 1,286 jobs. The O&G industry employs 652,398 jobs across the country, just 54,130 jobs away from returning to pre-pandemic levels. And how much do those jobs pay? The average hourly earnings for frontline oil-and-gas workers rose 1.3% in October from the previous month to $44.11, according to a Labor Department report released last week.
Yesterday, the Republicans who sit on the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee got work done while the Democrats tried to block work. The committee advanced legislation to establish an Independent Energy Information Office by a party-line vote, with Republicans supporting. There was also a party-line vote advancing Paul Bruder, an environmental attorney nominated by Gov. Shapiro for the Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) after Democrats failed to table the nomination. That’s right, the Dems tried to block a Shapiro (one of their own) nominee!
The Baker Hughes U.S. rig count hit a new low for 2023 five weeks ago (see 
In August, University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) researchers released three studies commissioned by the State Dept. of Health supposedly investigating whether or not there is a connection between shale drilling and childhood diseases, including cancer (see 
In May, MDN told you that since taking office in January, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has been a major dud — someone who doesn’t know how to lead (see 
On August 17, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) posted an Interim Final Environmental Justice Policy to guide DEP’s permit application reviews and outreach efforts in environmental justice areas throughout the Commonwealth (see 
Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that he will appeal a decision by the Commonwealth Court that blocks PA’s entrance into the obscene Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax scheme (see 
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently published its 2022 Oil and Gas Annual Report. This is the seventh year in a row the DEP has published the report in an interactive, electronic (i.e., online only) format. Don’t worry; we’ve made the report a convenient PDF for MDN readers. What does the 2022 report show? Permits issued went down, but the number of new wells drilled went up. The big news is that natural gas production has, for the first time, gone down year over year in the Keystone State. It is the first time natural gas production has decreased for a given year in the modern shale era in PA.
We spotted an article appearing on the PBS-backed Allegheny Front website supposedly reporting a story about Pennsylvania lawmakers looking for “best practices” to adopt in regulating the soon-coming hydrogen hub projects the state will see. PA will see some investment in hydrogen from two different hydrogen hub projects led by neighboring states (West Virginia and Delaware). The article wants you to think that PA lawmakers are reviewing and considering various regulations they might use to protect the public in this uncharted new territory of hydrogen energy. The real thrust of the article, however, is to push a leftist narrative that the hydrogen hubs should avoid using natural gas as the feedstock to produce hydrogen.
Last Wednesday, before heading out the door for the Thanksgiving holiday, MDN brought you the sad (but not unsurprising) news that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro had decided to appeal a Commonwealth Court decision striking down his predecessor’s attempt to force the state to implement a multi-billion-dollar carbon tax, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (see 
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