PA’s Supreme Court Orders Up the Impossible re Act 13
Yesterday MDN reported that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has essentially gutted the rest of the Act 13 drilling law passed in 2012 (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against Act 13 Drilling Law, Yet Again). One of the four provisions in the law eviscerated in the most recently ruling deals with notifications following a spill of chemicals or frack wastewater. The Act 13 law provided for a mechanism (requirement) that local public water drinking systems be notified following a spill. Immediately. But the law did not provide for the same notification to owners of private water wells. Why was that? Was it a sweetheart deal with evil, nasty frackers who don’t care if they poison the water wells of nearby residents–interested only in money? Uh, no. The fact is Pennsylvania is one of the few states that does not regulate private water wells, so there is no registry, no way to know WHO to inform in case of a spill. How can you require a company to do something when there is no way to do it? Which raises this question: Do the Democrats on the Supreme Court who made this decision even understand the issue at all? Are they totally clueless?…
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Following up on yesterday’s Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision to eviscerate the rest of the 2012 Act 13 drilling law (see 
Since before Aubrey McClendon left the helm at Chesapeake Energy, the company has been controversial and to one degree or another, in hot water. Legally. You’ve read plenty on MDN about who’s sued Chessy, over royalties, over collusion on land deals, over nonpayments to suppliers. You’ve also read about various investigations by various government entities into Chesapeake and their practices. It appears like it’s all reaching a fevered pitch. Yesterday Chesapeake filed disclosure forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission which says the U.S. Dept. of Justice, a number of states, and even the U.S. Postal Service have served the company with subpoenas for information. In essence, everyone has subpoenaed Chesapeake for everything…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: 5 takeaways from Shale Insight; PA cracker construction moves ahead at fast pace; natgas pipeline network to reach capacity in 6 mos; gas drillers could see $4/Mcf in 2017, for a short time; OPEC’s “truce on oil prices” may not last long; Chesapeake looks to sell the Haynesville for $1B; western Canadian gas may go east for export as LNG; and more!
The Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled yesterday in another (hopefully final) decision on the 2012 Act 13 Marcellus drilling law passed and signed by then-Gov. Tom Corbett. Four Democrat judges have just struck down more of Act 13, leaving not much left except the part that raises money and gives it away (called an impact fee, otherwise known as a severance tax). You will recall that seven selfish towns sued the state over the Act 13 law and it’s provision that would substitute a statewide, uniform and fair set of zoning ordinances for drilling in place of a patchwork, crazy quilt system of local ordinances for oil and gas drilling. These seven selfish towns wanted their own ordinances and sued, ultimately winning at the Supreme Court (see 
Earlier this week MDN brought you the dynamite news that Rice Energy is buying out Vantage Energy for $2.7 billion (see 
Last week the Baltimore Sun ran an article (a portion of which we picked up) that said “sources” were telling the Sun that the Maryland Dept. of the Environment (MDE) would miss a deadline to submit revisions to revisions of revisions of fracking regulations that will allow the state to begin fracking on or about October 1, 2017 (see 
Landowners from Bradford, Susquehanna, Wyoming and Lycoming counties (Pennsylvania) attended a rally in Harrisburg, at the Capitol, on Tuesday. They were there to lobby for and support passage of House Bill (HB) 1391, a bill that would guarantee landowners a minimum 12.5% royalty payment regardless of post-production costs. We have extensively covered this issue, which is causing a schism between landowners and drillers (see our most recent article: 
Something noteworthy is happening in southwest Pennsylvania. Landowners and pro-gas supporters are turning out at local hearings to support more drilling. Case in point: Range Resources had applied for a permit to build a drill pad near a local elementary school in Mt. Pleasant (Westmoreland County), PA. Moms Clean Air Force and other anti-drillers turned out to oppose the plan. A local town board meeting was packed to capacity. However, a majority of those packing the meeting were pro-gas and wore t-shirts with “Land Owners United” printed on them. Cool! About time our side began to turn up for these meetings to support the industry…
It’s always drama with Williams. Nearly half of the Williams board (6 of 14 board members) were part of a cabal that tried to force the company to sell itself to Energy Transfer Equity–a deal that went horribly wrong. Following the aborted merger, six of Williams’ board members tried to engineer a palace coup to depose current CEO Alan Armstrong. The coup failed and the board members quit in July (see 
Last week MDN told you that evil corporate raider Carl Icahn has thrown in the towel with respect to ever making money from Chesapeake Energy. He recently sold off half his Chessy stock (see 
Every now and again pipeline companies hand out grants to local worthy organizations, like fire departments and schools. PennEast Pipeline is one such organization. Christmas has come early to another group of non-profits. PennEast has just handed out $5,000 each to more than a dozen organizations (see the list below). All told, PennEast had distributed more than $400,000 to local organizations through its “Community Connector Grant” program…
MDN is pleased to bring you another guest post from our very good friend Chris Acker. Chris is a geological engineer with an MBA. He grew up in the oil fields of Venezuela where his father, a petroleum engineer, was a drilling contractor for all the major players, onshore and off. Chris’ interest in energy economics and policy found him working for Exxon, Petroleum Industry Research Associates and Petroleos de Venezuela. He bought a parcel of land in the PA countryside twenty-five years ago and later semi-retired to work on antique pianos (see