HB1950 is a weak cookie cutter mandate that will force local municipalities to allow “oil and gas operations” in ALL zoning districts. Fees collected with this unusual sliding-scale per-well fee will be far below the average lifetime per-well tax paid in other natural gas states.
Call your PA legislators today, and tell them they need to vote this bill down! Find their phone numbers visit: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/
State Senator Erickson Too Sensible for Harrisburg
It’s not everyday you meet a Pennsylvania State Senator. Rarer still do you have an hour-long discussion about Marcellus shale gas with a Republican who, along with eight members of his caucus, opposes key points in Governor Corbett’s Marcellus bill, SB1100. (more…)
High Volume Gas Metering Station to be a Stone’s Throw from Northeastern PA Elementary, Middle and High School Campus
Chief Gathering LLC is going to build a gas metering station 1,300 feet from the Dallas Township Schools in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, according to The Dallas Post on December 11, 2011, and much to the dismay of residents opposed to industrial gas activity so close their children’s schools. (more…)
“Colossal Failure” of Governor Corbett and The PA Department of Environmental Protection
The EPA began delivering water to four families in Dimock PA on Friday, January 20, while they conduct further testing on 61 more households. The move signals a failure of Tom Corbett and the PA DEP to safeguard the water supply of citizens. Peacegirl posted a video of the Press Conference on Sunday, January 20, 2012 in Dimock, PA. Among the speakers introduced by Julia Walsh of FrackAction were Craig Sautner, who will be receiving EPA water, and Victoria Switzer, who will not.
“Let science speak for itself… Well, I guess it has, hasn’t it?” Sautner said. (more…)
Blue Monday
Pennsylvania has leased a full one-third of its 2.1 million-acre forest system for oil and gas drilling – that’s 700,000 acres – and more than 130,000 acres are for Fracking.
Nevertheless, Don Hopey reported in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Governor Corbett has pink-slipped the Executive Director of the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Citizens Advisory Council, Kurt Leitholf, “having determined that determined this position was no longer needed.” (more…)
Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-25, Jefferson County, said Tuesday he hopes final passage of impact fee legislation can be achieved before Mr. Corbett’s budget address early next month, reports Robert Swift, Harrisburg Bureau Chief for The Times-Tribune in Senate GOP Leader Sees Crunch Time on Shale. Also according to Swift, Scarnati said, “If it isn’t done, it’s going to be an issue for 2012.” Let’s hope! This landmark piece of legislation should be the issue for 2012. (more…)
From wellpad construction to 25,000 miles of high-pressure pipelines slapped down to gather gas and ship it to China, hydraulic fracturing isn’t merely a threat to local box turtles, it’s murder on our watersheds. A simple assessment of the facts makes it difficult to imagine that any legislature can truly “get gas right” if they allow fracking in a watershed. And if they get it wrong, the adverse ecological and human health consequences could last, literally, for ages. Future generations will have no one to blame but us. (more…)
In what is being hailed as a BIG WIN FOR THE DELAWARE RIVER WATERSHED, The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) has cancelled, or postponed, its scheduled November 21st meeting in which the commission was to vote on opening the Delaware River Watershed to industrial shale gas drilling. THE MORATORIUM STANDS! It’s a victory for the nearly 74,000 people who petitioned the DRBC not to frack in the river basin. The watershed protection coalition’s news release is bounding across the internet this morning. (more…)
At a press conference Monday, November 14, outside the offices of The US Army Corps of Engineers in Center City Philadelphia, a group of the Delaware River’s biggest proponents announced that among them they have a record-breaking 73,910 signatures on letters and petitions to the voting members of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) urging them NOT to open the basin to industrial shale gas drilling at their upcoming meeting on November 21, 2011. (more…)
Josh Fox, whose Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland inspired a global movement, is calling all water activists to stand up to and say NO! to Fracking in the Delaware River Basin on Monday, November 21, 2011 in Trenton, NJ. The rally begins at 8am at The Patriots Theater, 1 Memorial Drive, Trenton, NJ, where the next Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) meeting is to be held. If the commission votes to enact its new draft regulations for industrial gas drilling, the Delaware River Watershed, source of drinking water for 15.6 million people, will be immediately be open to 300 new frack wells, with many more to follow 18 months later. Fox has his detractors, even in the mainstream media, but a Gasland sequel is reportedly in the works with HBO, and there’s buzz over a possible trilogy. I’m a card-carrying fan. This Vimeo clip features Fox’s most recent call-to-action. (more…)
UPDATE: November 13, 2011: Supporters of DiGirolamo’s amendment to the widely debated HB1950 are set to begin running a Radio Ad tomorrow.
Drilling Tax vs. Impact Fee
Reps. Gene DiGirolamo (R-18th District, Bucks) and Tom Murt (R-152nd District, Montgomery/Philadelphia) are a great example of democracy at work. Last week, as Pennsylvania Senate pro tempore, Joe Scarnati (R-25th District) deleted much of the impact fee language from his bill, SB1100, these two Republicans saw their star on the rise. DiGirolamo, who is known to advocate for seniors, and Murt, whose Child Labor Bill passed the House earlier this year, are proposing HB 1863 – a healthy, widely distributed tax on Marcellus Shale drilling. Make no mistake, the gentlemen from Southeastern PA are breaking with Republican party leadership on this issue as they valiantly attempt to fill the common sense void in Harrisburg. (more…)
UPDATE [November 8, 2011]: On Sunday, November 6, Bill Schackner reported in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that the Cal U Student Association had been quietly negotiating a mineral lease deal. Read the details in his article, Drilling on Campus: Marcellus Shale boom puts colleges at crossroads It’s the first of two parts. Here’s Part II: Corporate funding of Marcellus Shale studies at universities raises alarms by Reid R. Frazier and Olivia Garber.
~
On October 26, 2011, the Pennsylvania State Senate passed SB 367, by a vote of 47-2, which will allow the State System of Higher Education to lease the mineral rights of campus land for shale gas drilling. PA State Senators Jim Ferlo [D-38th District] and Mike Folmer [R-18th District] cast the dissenting votes. [Source: PASenate.com] State universities located above the Marcellus Shale are Bloomsburg, CALU, Clarion, Edinboro, Indiana, Lock Haven, Mansfield and Slippery Rock. (more…)
None of the top three Republican Presidential contenders give much credence to the science of Global Climate Change. To ignore it the way they do just seems stupid, and this sets the table for my impressions of these motley characters. I cringe watching all the coverage about the Republican Primary. I don’t disagree with everything they say, but when they speak about energy, the environment or the EPA, they all have the same under-informed, unabashedly biased voice.
Republicans for Obama?
Really? Do they exist? Yesterday, at the supermarket, I saw a Prius with a brand new bumper sticker that read: “Republicans for Obama.” According to their website, “Republicans for Obama is a grassroots organization of proud party members who all share one important trait— we are Americans first and Republicans second.” Cool. I’m a registered Democrat and even I’ve been less than supportive of our president lately. His federal advisory commission on shale gas drilling is stacked with industry insiders, and the revolving door between industry and government has never spun faster. But at least Obama believes in Climate Change! (more…)
The Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) supply chain is generally more energy and greenhouse gas intensive than the supply chain for pipeline gas because of the extra processing steps. If Pennsylvania becomes a major LNG exporter, we will essentially be exporting the primary benefit of using this cleaner burning fossil fuel while bearing all the nasty environmental hazards and downsides of drilling for, processing and transporting it. (more…)
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) is the only government entity standing between industrial shale gas drilling in the “Special Protection Waters” of the Delaware River watershed region and the 15.6 million people living downstream in Southeastern PA who rely on this river for drinking water. In September, the DRBC held its final public hearing on the issue of rules for horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the Delaware Basin in West Trenton, NJ. At least they held it, right? The hearing was called for 1:30pm, but Food & Water Watch, Protecting Our Waters, and other water action groups had a protest going by noon. The upshot: The DRBC is currently scheduled to vote on whether to allow fracking in the Delaware River Basin on November 21, 2011. (more…)
UPDATE [November 8, 2011] On Sunday, November 6, Bill Schackner reported in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that the Cal U Student Association had been quietly negotiating a mineral lease deal. Read the details in his article, Drilling on Campus: Marcellus Shale boom puts colleges at crossroads It’s the first of two parts. Here is Part II: Corporate funding of Marcellus Shale studies at universities raises alarms by Reid R. Frazier and Olivia Garber
ORIGINAL POST:
When Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett [R] first spoke of leasing state college and university land to gas drillers, he was addressing a meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of Councils of Trustees at Edinboro University in March, 2011. He was suggesting a way to soften the economic blow of $650 million in proposed cuts to Public Higher Education, cuts which amounted to a stunning 50% off the prior year’s budget. Cuts that were in addition to the universally repellant $550 million already slashed from Basic Education funding. When Corbett made his seemingly casual suggestion, however, he wasn’t grasping at political straws. He was sowing the seeds of new fiscal policy. (more…)
The purpose of the Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission September 6th hearing at the Free Library of Philadelphia was to “delve deeper into a variety of shale gas issues, including water and air quality, social impacts of gas drilling, the drilling tax, and impacts outside Marcellus communities.” A host of invited presenters gave detailed testimony in their area of expertise, then the floor was open to public comment. This was, by far, the more colorful aspect of the evening, (more…)
In case you haven’t heard, Governor Tom Corbett thinks he’s “getting gas right.” The rest of Pennsylvania, including many Republican lawmakers in the Republican-controlled State House and Senate, tend to disagree. In the environmental equivalent of Redistricting, the administration has a plan to restructure the DEP and, in particular, its Bureau of Oil and Gas Management. In other words, they don’t like their cards, so rather than play the hand they’ve been dealt, they’re reshuffling the deck. Anything to “get gas done” – “getting it right” would simply be a bonus. The most objectionable of the rumored significant changes: several of the department’s renewable energy and energy conservation programs have been reassessed, scaled back or eliminated. (more…)
Keep Tap Water Safe 