PA House Passes Fiscal Code Bill with Bad Riders, but No Sev Tax
Yesterday MDN told you about two different environmental “riders” snuck into the Pennsylvania Fiscal Code bill that is part of the annual state budget (now four months late). The riders have nothing to do with the budget or raising revenue. It’s a sleazy political ploy to pass unpopular measures that wouldn’t get passed on a standalone vote. One of the riders changes the terms of existing leases by allowing drillers to reactivate old/expired leases, either by restarting production or by drilling a new well if the landowner doesn’t object within 90 days of notification (see PA Republican Senate Changes Lease Terms for Landowners). The other rider more or less enacts a permanent ban on drilling in southeast PA, in the South Newark Basin (see PA Republican Senate Extends SE PA Drilling Ban in Newark Basin). The bad news is that the House passed the Fiscal Code bill (109-75). The bill has now gone to PA Gov. Wolf for his signature. No word yet on whether the flaky Wolf will actually sign it. The good news is that a severance tax bill which recently had gained steam when it was reported out of committee (RINO Gene DiGirolamo’s House Bill (HB) 1401) did not make the cut. So far DiGirolamo’s bill has been loaded down with 350 amendments and there’s no end in sight for when it will receive voting attention, meaning (for now) it’s dead…
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Monroeville, PA (Allegheny County, suburb of Pittsburgh) is hostile toward the shale industry. In September, Monroeville Council voted to enact a super-restrictive seismic testing ordinance (see 
In August Energy Transfer’s Sunoco Logisitics unit struck a deal with the devil–the devil being the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council, THE Delaware Riverkeeper and Mountain Watershed Association–in a move to lift a ban on underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) for the Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline project (see 
The former CEO of the fourth largest oilfield services company in the world, Weatherford International, says “intensive fracking” being used in U.S. shale plays is becoming so effective that its draining wells faster, earlier, and that means decline rates will soon begin to skyrocket. At the Oil & Money Conference in London on Monday, Bernand Duroc-Danner said this: “If you’re going to be fracking closer zones like crazy, lots of sand, lots of water, lots of pressure, you drain the hell out of those zones which is why production goes up…But then those zones don’t get replenished…after two years, there’ll be a build up in decline rates…I am not so sure if the battle won’t be, in two years, to sustain the base as opposed to keep on growing.” What does he mean?…
On Monday, a bi-partisan group of 84 Members of Congress signed a letter addressed to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice. The letter asks whether existing federal laws allow prosecution for criminal activity that threatens energy infrastructure and additionally, if attacks on energy infrastructure that threaten human life fall within the DOJ’s classification of domestic terrorism. The Congressfolks are tired of radicalized environmentalists who tip over into acts of vandalism, like burning holes through pipelines and destroying construction equipment–actions that happened in North Dakota last year, part of the “peaceful” Dakota Access Pipeline protests. The not-so-subtle message for the DOJ is that such acts should be considered domestic terrorism. Let’s call it what it is. The people who perpetrate these acts are not to be dismissed as overly enthusiastic but well-meaning, perhaps going an inch or two over the line. NO. They endanger the lives of innocent adults and children with their violent actions. They are to be considered terrorists and treated as such under the laws of the United States…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: OH Utica rig count holds at 23; Atlantic seaboard gas power burn goes higher; natgas power plants bring investment, jobs to PA; Univ of North Dakota dedicates training, drilling labs; Tellurian offers equity stake in Driftwood LNG; Florida Power & Light wants another gas-fired plant; U.S. leads the world in reducing carbon emissions; tight oil’s impact on gas production; gas shortage in China; and more!
Ohio Utica Shale drilling is showing signs of a new boom in drilling–much to the delight of everyone, except anti’s. A new shale boom in the Buckeye State is good for landowners, it’s good for the economy, and it’s good for jobs. Frankly, it’s good for everyone. What are the signs of a burgeoning new shale boom? Here’s one sign: Business at a barge facility on the Ohio River where drillers offload equipment and supplies had all but dried up–at least traffic coming from shale-related customers. The facility operator kept afloat by handling soybeans and corn. But now? The bookings from the oil and gas industry are rolling in again. Drilling supplies like barite are once again coming to the facility. Add to that rig counts in Ohio are inching up–almost at parity with Pennsylvania (see 
Last week the The Independent Power Producers (IPPs) of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia wrote an official letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) detailing their objection to a proposed plan by the Dept. of Energy (DOE) to give special treatment to electric power generating facilities powered by coal and nuclear plants. The DOE recently ordered FERC to devise new market rules favoring coal and nukes on the premise they contribute to “grid resiliency.” The IPPs writing the letter in opposition represent at least 26 shale gas-fired electric plant projects across the three states, which will contribute $21 billion to those state economies and generate 20,000+ jobs. Below we have the letter sent to FERC by the IPPs. That letter prompted our friends at Energy in Depth to produce a list of the projects the IPPs are building (or have built) in the tri-state area. It is an impressive list. We liked it and grabbed it to share with the MDN audience…
In just about every state in the country, before you start digging a hole in the ground for some reason (water well, septic system, laying an underground electric line, etc.)–the first thing you do is call 811 or some similar phone number. The “one call” or “first call” reaches a state-authorized (not necessarily state-run) office where they have, on file, maps detailing any kind of underground cables, pipelines and other infrastructure. If such underground structures exist, a representative of the owner for the underground line will, if necessary, stop by and mark the areas so when you do begin digging, you don’t hit it. Makes sense. A bill introduced last year in the Pennsylvania legislature would “enhance” the existing 811 law in PA. One of the “enhancements” is that it removes an exclusion for low-pressure natural gas gathering pipelines from being required to be part of the 811 system, mainly lines run to low-producing conventional gas wells. The bill was opposed by the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (see 
The Pennsylvania State budget is a complicated pile of…bills. At it’s core are three basic budget-related bills that implement the $31.9 billion state budget (unwisely) passed in June. It was unwisely passed because Republican lawmakers voted for a plan to spend money without having a way to pay for it. Stupid. PA Gov. Tom Wolf (liberal Democrat) demanded part of the new revenue required to pay for all that wild spending is to tax the Marcellus industry with a severance tax–on top of the existing impact tax (already the equivalent of a severance tax in other states). One of the three main bills to pay for the budget is the Fiscal Code bill–House Bill 674. HB 674 was adopted by the PA Senate on Monday (vote of 41-9). In the Senate version, which now goes to the House for final adoption, there are a number of “environmental riders”–or bits of legislation that have nothing to do with the budget or spending, but tacked on as a way of getting them passed without the mess of voting on them individually. Swamp politics. One of those provisions is “SECTION 1610-E” which gives drillers the right to reactivate old, non-producing wells after they have not been producing (and the lease considered terminated) under certain conditions…
As MDN has explained in a companion story appearing today (see PA Republican Senate Changes Lease Terms for Landowners), the PA legislature has slipped a number of “environmental riders” into one of the final budget bills. The riders are bits of legislation that have nothing to do with the budget or spending, but tacked on as a way of getting them passed without the mess of voting on them individually. One of those riders affects the potential to drill for oil and gas in southeast PA. Back in 2012, an eleventh hour deal was snuck into the Pennsylvania budget signed into law by then-Gov. Tom Corbett (see 
As we have said for years, ever since the Pennsylvania legislature modernized and updated drilling regulations to account for shale drilling in 2012, known as Act 13, anti-fossil fuel nutters have attempted first to destroy Act 13, and later subvert it. Act 13 originally provided for uniform zoning across the state with respect to siting wells. But seven selfish townships sued and eventually won (at the PA Supreme Court) the right to retain their own zoning regulations with respect to oil and gas wells (see 
On Aug. 30, the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued a letter to FERC and Millennium Pipeline denying Millennium’s request for a water permit to build a 7.8 mile pipeline spur from the main Millennium Pipeline to a natural gas power plant under construction in Orange County (see 
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in liberal New York) has refused to re-hear the case against New York’s corrupt Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for its arbitrary and capricious refusal to grant a water crossing permit to Williams’ Constitution Pipeline. In August MDN brought you the sad news that the Second Circuit ruled against the Constitution Pipeline and their lawsuit against the Cuomo-corrupted DEC (see 
Marcellus Drilling News began in early 2009 after editor Jim Willis noticed an article in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin detailing how a group of farmers in Broome County (near where Jim lives) had become overnight millionaires after signing leases with XTO Energy–to allow shale drilling on and under their land. Jim was stumped. He had never heard of gas drilling in the Southern Tier of New York, nor had he heard of XTO Energy. The issue of shale drilling appeared to be an interesting issue, full of technology, politics and money. Sounds like the makings of a soap opera! And what a soap it has been since that time–at least in New York State. Jim has followed the ups and downs (mostly downs) of attempting to launch shale drilling in the Empire State. When Andrew Cuomo was first elected governor, it appeared that he would (eventually) allow fracking. Now? He won’t even allow the state’s environmental agency to approve major interstate pipelines–projects most residents were unaware of just a few short years ago. Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) ace reporter Jamison Cocklin recently wrote an in-depth series of articles focusing on New York and what’s happening with the gas industry in the state. It was/is an EXCELLENT series of articles. NGI has assembled the series, along with extra information, into a 16-page Special Report titled, “