PA Gov Wolf “Eager” to Sign Drilling Law Forced Down His Throat
7/29/16 Update: Please see the note on this article for clarification on when/if new shale drilling regulations (known as Article 78a) will take effect.
We can’t stop laughing. PA’s very liberal Governor, Tom Wolf, has been obstinate in demanding onerous new drilling rules for the conventional, as well as unconventional (shale) drilling industry since he took office. Reworked drilling rules were done and ready to go under previous Governor, Tom Corbett. Then Corbett lost to Wolf, and Wolf demanded to change common sense rules everyone had already agreed to (see New Draft Drilling Regulations in PA: Wastewater Impoundments Out). It became obvious that Democrats were trying to run PA’s traditional, small conventional drillers out of business by applying the same regulations to them that will apply to shale drillers. The Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) represents many of those small conventional drillers and vigorously fought back (see PIOGA Turns Up the Heat on Wolf/Quigley Over TAB/Article 78 and PA Board Adopts New Drilling Regs, PIOGA Blasts DEP “Deceptive”). In the end, Wolf’s own Democrat Party legislators in the House and Senate abandoned him and the writing was on the wall: The entire package of drilling rules, for both conventional (Article 78) and shale (Article 78a) was headed for defeat. The legislature was about to repeal both sets of newly-minted DEP rules–so Wolf pivoted and decided to accept half a loaf–passage of the shale rules, Article 78a (see Wolf Really Didn’t Wise Up, He Just Took Half a Loaf re Drilling Regs). Yesterday the the PA House voted 141-46 to require the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to start from scratch with proposed rules for the state’s conventional drilling industry. The Senate later agreed, voting 37-12 in favor of Senate Bill (SB) 279. The bill will now be signed by Wolf. Why are we laughing? Because Wolf’s office issued a press release yesterday essentially taking credit for getting SB 279 passed–like it was somehow his idea all along, when in fact he was forced into it…
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Pennsylvania State Rep. Greg Vitali, a far-left Democrat from the Philadelphia area, is a good soldier who knows how to take orders. When Big Green says “Salute!” Greg snaps his arm around faster than you can say “global warming.” A few weeks ago PA’s radical Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), John Quigley, got fired over an email he unethically sent from a private email account to his close buddies in the Big Green movement, asking them to out so-called “apostate” Democrats who refuse to support his (Quigley’s) radical, anti-drilling agenda (see 
In 2014, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) fined Range Resources a whopping $4.15 million for violations related to several of Range’s wastewater impoundments in Washington County, PA (see 
Earlier this month MDN shared with you the news that Munroe Falls (Summit County), OH had filed yet another frivolous lawsuit against Beck Energy to prevent drilling–after already losing a similar case before the Ohio Supreme Court (see 
Yesterday Williams published a letter from Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS)–a “leading proxy advisory firm”–recommending that shareholders in Williams should vote “yes” on the merger with Energy Transfer Equity (ETE). Williams will hold a special shareholder’s meeting on Monday, June 27, to vote on the proposed merger. Even if a majority votes in favor of the merger–far from a foregone conclusion–it’s still not a done deal. ETE continues to assert that expert opinions on the taxability of the merger may scuttle the deal. Just a few weeks ago ETE sued Williams to abort the deal (see 
Not long after Michael Krancer was appointed Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection in 2011, he “requested” (which was more order than request) that municipal sewage treatment plants still accepting and processing Marcellus drilling wastewater stop the practice. At the time there were 15 plants accepting Marcellus wastewater. Under pressure from Krancer, they ended the practice in May 2011 (see 
For some time now we’ve had our eye on Bear Head LNG, a $2.2 billion LNG export project proposed by Australian company Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (LNGL), to be built in Nova Scotia, Canada. In August 2015 the Canadian National Energy Board (NEB) approved LNG exports for the project. In February of this year the U.S. Dept. of Energy also gave its blessing, because the gas it will export will largely come from the Marcellus/Utica region (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Ohio has 12 rigs running, 1 new Utica permit; Kinder Morgan donates $15K to Wooster YMCA; hope that Wolf will back off on severance tax; Rogersville Shale drilling at stand-still; Maine needs more natgas; large stockpiles of natgas choking price rally; Speaker Ryan unveils plan to roll back Obama enviro regs; and more!
The silent pipeline-supporting majority became more vocal last night at a second hearing in as many days for the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline. Monday night’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) public hearing was a circus-like freak show, complete with one crazy wearing a cape like he’s Superman (see 
We have to confess this story completely escaped us–until now. But we think we know why. We spotted a story (below) in a Wheeling, WV newspaper about an Ohio driller who was caught–back in 2011–dumping about 50 gallons per week of brine from some of his oil wells into an open ditch in Monroe County, OH. The story implies the brine (i.e. wastewater) is from fracked wells. The story is wrong. The brine is from conventional oil wells, not fracked shale wells. The driller/operator of the wells is one Donald Hercher and he’s just been sentenced to four days in jail, two years of probation, and a $70,000 fine. Aside from setting the record straight, the reason the story interests us is because of several other aspects of Hercher’s punishment–he’s being forced to write and publish an article in three trade journals “to educate readers on the ‘Waterways of the U.S.'” and to donate $5,000 to a private organization…
