Philly Gang of Five Win Delay of PA DEP Secretary Reconfirmation
Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw (Republican from Lycoming County), who serves as Majority Chair of the Senate Environmental Committee, has caved to pressure from five Philadelphia-area Senators (four Democrats, one RINO), to delay a hearing on reconfirming Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Patrick McDonnell. The Gang of Five are trying to bully McDonnell into blocking the Mariner East 2 Pipeline project by threatening him with unending investigations, and by threatening his very job. Nice folks.
UPDATE: Sen. Yaw did not cave to pressure from the Gang of Five. Something else has delayed McDonnell’s reconfirmation. See our update below.
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A group of four Democrat Pennsylvania State Senators and one RINO, all from the Philadelphia region, have requested the Senate committee that will hold a hearing on reconfirming state Dept. of Environmental Protection Secretary Patrick McDonnell to a second term, be put on hold. The gang of five are fighting the completion of the Mariner East 2 pipeline project and believe McDonnell improperly approved and has covered up problems with the project. Don’t you love it when Dems turn on their own?
Are underground shale wastewater pipelines the “next big thing” for the Pennsylvania midstream (i.e. pipeline) industry? According to Thomas Karam, CEO of Equitrans Midstream Corp. (formerly EQT Midstream), they just may be. Most of Equitrans’ pipeline business is flowing natural gas. A little bit of their business is dedicated to flowing wastewater. Karam wants to grow that little bit into a much bigger bit.
Since January 20, all of Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner East 1 (ME1) pipeline has been shut down on the orders of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (see 
A week ago MDN brought you the news that Chevron has cut a $50 billion deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum (see 
Swamp dwellers are recoiling in horror that the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee has just approved a series of bills that restores some sanity in how environmental regulations are made and paid for in the Keystone State. The bills begin, in a small way, to take back control of our system of creating laws, returning authority for making laws to the PA legislature, instead of creating and forcing laws on citizens by unelected, nameless, faceless, swamp-dwelling bureaucrats in regulatory agencies like the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). Let us explain.
Last November, a variety of Big Green groups including the Clean Air Council, Widener University Environmental Law and Sustainability Center, eco(n)law LLC and 61 others submitted a “rulemaking petition” (407-page plan) to the Pennsylvania Environment Quality Board (EQB) requesting the Board and PA Gov. Tom Wolf establish a cap-and-trade greenhouse gas emission reduction program to eliminate carbon emissions from major sources by 2052. It’s a bizarre plan, meant to eliminate fossil fuel production and use, including Marcellus Shale production. Yesterday the EQB voted to accept and consider this cockamamie plan.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee voted to recommend the DEP move forward with a proposed new regulation to control volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, with a side benefit of reducing methane emissions, from existing oil and gas operations. It was a split vote, but it propels the regs to the next level.
Pennsylvania State Senators Camera Bartolotta (Washington County) and Pat Stefano (Fayette County) have just beaten PA Gov. Tom Wolf at his own game. Wolf has been gallivanting around the state like Santa Claus promoting a plan called Restore PA, a plan that will get rid of lead paint in schools, fix flooding, repair old roads, give rural residents internet access, and just about any other goody you can think of. Wolf wants to pay for it by slapping a severance tax on the Marcellus industry. Bartolotta and Stefano are introducing two bills that would fund Wolf’s folly–but do so by allowing new shale drilling on state land. Game, set, and match!
What will Pennsylvania’s future with respect to energy look like 25 years from now? What role will shale gas play? And how will that role affect the state? A group of 35 people began to study that question in the summer of 2017 and the end result, a new study, has just been released (full copy below). According to the study’s results, there are two distinct paths PA can take, resulting in two very different outcomes.
We’re in the unusual position of defending Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, arguably the worst governor PA has had in a generation. But defend him (and his staff) we must, because the Wolf Administration is the object of a false and disgusting smear campaign by a prominent London tabloid called The Guardian.