Exclusive: PA EQB Board Member Speaks Out Against RGGI Carbon Tax
On Tuesday, Sept. 15 the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB), one of over two dozen boards and committees and commissions part of the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), will hold a hearing and cast a key vote on Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposal to force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The EQB is one of four rulemaking authorities within the DEP–perhaps the most powerful DEP committee, with the power to create new binding regulations affecting every citizen in the state. Although tomorrow’s vote won’t be the final vote enacting Wolf’s plan, it is an important vote, a key vote, and will significantly advance the process of joining RGGI. One EQB member, Mark Caskey, is sounding the alarm on RGGI, pledging to vote against it. MDN interviewed Mark last week. Below is a summary of our talk.
Read More “Exclusive: PA EQB Board Member Speaks Out Against RGGI Carbon Tax”
Yesterday the full Pennsylvania Senate passed House Bill (HB) 2025, a bill already passed by the House previously. The bill now goes to Democrat leftist Gov. Tom Wolf, who says he will veto it. The bill restores democracy to the Commonwealth by giving the legislature–the very people elected to be the voice of PA citizens–a role in deciding whether or not PA should join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)–which is nothing more than an obscenely high tax on carbon meant to kill coal and natural gas-fired power plants in the state–a major customer of Marcellus gas.
S&P Global Market Intelligence has done some forensic analysis of permits issued to drill new shale wells in Pennsylvania during August 2020. They compared last month’s permit numbers with the numbers from a year ago and found that PA issued 77 new permits last month, down 24% from August 2019.
In early August the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) finally issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) for an amended request by PennEast Pipeline to break the project into two phases–building the pipeline through Pennsylvania in Phase One, and through New Jersey in Phase Two (see 
In June 2017, the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation (PEDF) won a case at the PA Supreme Court by the skin of their teeth (see 
On August 24, 31 radicalized Big Green groups from across Pennsylvania sent a letter to the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell demanding (they always demand) the DEP immediately and permanently revoke all Mariner East construction permits and prohibit the issuance of any future permits. Yeah, just stop the pipeline, which is about 98% done, from ever getting completed. What else can you say except it’s demented? Nobody in their right mind would reasonably request or expect the DEP to simply stop the project permanently.
Last Thursday Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report–for April through June 2020 (full copy below). The report shows natgas production in PA rose 2.8% compared to the same period last year. However, overall production fell 2.8% compared to 1Q20–the second quarter in a row production has fallen quarter-over-quarter.
Pittsburgh-based IntegrServ, a trucking company partly owned by former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against EQT claiming discrimination against the company as a minority-owned company after it canceled a contract worth some $66 million last year. This is an involved story and of course, there are always two sides to every story (and two sides to every lawsuit).
We spotted a story from ace reporter Paul Gough (Pittsburgh Business Times) titled, “5 things to know about Pennsylvania’s new energy report.” According to Gough, earlier this week PA released a new “Pennsylvania Energy Jobs Overview” report. Wait, what? Why didn’t the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) or Gov. Wolf’s office issue a press release to announce this new report? We don’t know why, but they didn’t. The DEP did issue a press release about an uptick in jobs in the so-called renewable energy sector–but nothing about all the other forms of energy. However, we have a copy of the full report (below). It shows the total number of jobs in the Marcellus/Utica went down last year by 7.4%, or 1,897 jobs lost.
Another week, another look at the rig count. The onshore rig count continues to bump along near the bottom of historic lows. It’s not AT the bottom (thank God), but it does continue to flirt with low numbers. According to Enverus, which tracks rigs using GPS units, the count bottomed at the beginning of July with 264 active rigs. Since then it’s risen and currently stands around 280 rigs. Week to week it goes up and it goes down, but not down significantly. According to Enverus, the count lost a rig last week.