Pennsylvania Natural Gas Drilling Bill: GOP Lawmakers Seek Vote

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A final framework is at hand on sweeping legislation to impose an impact fee and update safety regulations on Pennsylvania's booming natural gas industry, top Republican state lawmakers say.

Republicans notified rank-and-file lawmakers Saturday night that they hope to hold votes this week on a framework reached by negotiators from the House, Senate and Gov. Tom Corbett's office during closed-door negotiations over the past six weeks. Pennsylvania is the only major gas-producing state that doesn't tax natural gas production.

"These discussions have progressed rapidly over the course of the last two weeks," House Speaker Sam Smith and House Majority Leader Mike Turzai said in a letter to lawmakers. "In fact, staff have been working throughout the weekend and will be working tomorrow in order to have a proposal that we can consider as early as this week."

According to summaries of the framework distributed to lawmakers, the impact fee would rise and fall with the price of natural gas and inflation. Counties that host the drilling would have the option of whether to impose the fee, but a critical mass of municipalities could override a refusal. Details of the exact fee were not included in the summaries.

The bill would increase the required distance between drilling and public water sources such as reservoirs, but not to the extent sought by Democrats, and it would require the state to develop regulations for transporting drilling wastewater and enforce qualifications of treatment plant operators.

Money from the impact fee and state forest drilling royalties would be distributed to a wide range of purposes, including bridge repairs, water and sewer plant improvements, statewide environmental cleanup programs and purchases of natural-gas fleet vehicles. Local governments would get 60 percent of the money from an impact fee, with 40 percent going to state programs or agencies.

It also would address a top priority of the natural gas industry and set limits to prevent municipal officials from imposing zoning ordinances that effectively prevent drilling there. A drilling operator could ask state utility regulators to review a local ordinance to determine whether it allows for "the reasonable development of oil and gas." If the Public Utility Commission or a state court decides that a local ordinance fails, the municipality would be unable to receive impact-fee money until it changes it.

Pennsylvania lawmakers have talked about whether to tax the natural gas industry since it arrived in earnest in 2008 to tap into the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation, considered the nation's largest-known natural gas reservoir. The drilling has drawn opponents who fear it is polluting the water supply.

The Marcellus Shale lies primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania is the center of activity, with more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and thousands more planned as shale emerges as an affordable, plentiful and profitable source of natural gas.

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Comments

[inesison]

11:34 AM on 03/14/2012

Thius is what we have to look forward to in Pennsylvania thanks to Tom Corbett: The Oil Disaster on the Kalamazoo River caused by Enbridge Energy's broken pipeline is already being described as the worst oil spill in history in the Great Lakes Region. With at least 1 million gallons of crude oil flowing into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River, Pennsylvania is the center of activity, with more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and thousands more planned as shale emerges as an affordable, plentiful and profitable source of natural gas. What was that republicans said about not enough drilling, 3,000 friggin wells so far, we f**ked

[Kathie Shaffer]

01:32 PM on 02/06/2012

i agree with narki !!!

[Max Load]

09:47 AM on 02/06/2012

Oh, wait, here's the real crux of the matter: '...a top priority of the natural gas industry and set limits to prevent municipal officials from imposing zoning ordinances that effectively prevent drilling there."

All the drilling companies really want is to take away the right of individual communities to keep drillers at bay by imposing an "executive override"... for the common good of course.

That warms the cockles of my Robber Baron heart to no end.

[inesison]

11:39 AM on 03/14/2012

In Pa, the drilling company "leased" over 170 thousand acres of land to drill on, All those folks with houses up the mountains, it's Gasland baby. Speaking of mountains, better get your cameras and take some pictures, because they're not going to be there much longer. I see now why they "lease" the land. They drill a few thousand holes, blast it with chemicals and wa laa - flat top mountains with their own contaminated lakes. What a perfect place for a vacation

[Max Load]

09:44 AM on 02/06/2012

Note: "during closed-door negotiations over the past six weeks."

This always bodes well for the health and well being of the electorate, right?

[Kathie Shaffer]

01:44 PM on 02/06/2012

RIGHT

[inesison]

11:42 AM on 03/14/2012

Try and build a well in one of their back yards and they'd throw a hissy fit. It's all well and good as long as its not near any of their estates....or on their grounds

[pmag88]

09:31 AM on 02/06/2012

What treatment plants? There are only a few in the state that have been certified to deal with the waste and that was common knowledge. Also, the operators said they were moving towards recycling the product, but apparently that was just talk because no one displayed a technology that can do this at all, let a alone at a cost that would make it profitable to extract the product using current technology.

Just like clean coal. Theoretically it can be done, but practically it can't and won't be done.

[Kathie Shaffer]

01:46 PM on 02/06/2012

I HOPE U R RIGHT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[OkieMon]

08:21 AM on 02/06/2012

fracking blew up and killed grandparents and their grand child in northern PA.....

[personal beliefs]

01:32 PM on 02/06/2012

err, no it didn't. Stop with your endless propaganda already.

[OkieMon]

08:25 PM on 02/06/2012

i'd provide you with the link but since you are brain***was***hed it would do no good....stop listening to hannyrushyglennyfoxxy....

[OkieMon]

08:19 AM on 02/06/2012

fracking in the beautiful endless mountains in northeast PA is unsafe....only 2800 feet below drinking water aquifers.....ban fracking less than 10,000 feet deep....

[Dadzilla]

08:04 AM on 02/06/2012

It also would address a top priority of the natural gas industry and set limits to prevent municipal officials from imposing zoning ordinances that effectively prevent drilling there

With a board hand picked by the drilling companies, no doubt.

[realityCheckInTheMail]

12:53 AM on 02/06/2012

This is great news! This will only strengthen the case for shale gas drilling NY and OH.

Once the additional tax revenue rolls in (on top of the increased revenue already rolling in from increased economic activity in general) the Penn budget will grow stronger.

Penn and Corbett will be held up as an example of gas drilling down right... (as will Hickenloper and CO).

Watch out fractivists. The grown ups are coming.

[grappler1987]

01:24 AM on 02/06/2012

"fractivists"

Funny, thanks.

[RealityMyFriend]

04:01 AM on 02/06/2012

So you’re okay with making the ground water un-drinkable from frackin chemicals? Having pockets of gas escape into the water creating hidden explosive hazards? Worse having a house full with gas and explode the moment someone walks in?

This gas is a finite resource (sorry big word for you). We ought to look more into a sustainable renewable sources instead of frakin up the earth.

[WESmith]

11:19 PM on 02/05/2012

The picture used for this article is not of a drilling company drilling a gas well.
It is not a picture of a cementing company completing a well.
It's not of a fracturing company fracturing a well.
It is not a picture of a gas company producing a well.
It might be a logging company logging a well.
Or maybe a perforating company perforating the well.

[grappler1987]

11:15 PM on 02/05/2012

"The drilling has drawn opponents who fear it is polluting the water supply."

"more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and thousands more planned as shale emerges as an affordable, plentiful and profitable source of natural gas."

Allay the fears. We need the pentiful, yet affordable energy.

[pmag88]

10:09 AM on 02/06/2012

The sun shines almost every day, and as you get up a few hundred feet in elevation there is generally always wind. Insulation is cheap and computer controlled air handling systems inside your home to heat and cool on an as need basis could take the costs way down. I guarantee you won't see your bills drop by a dime using nuke, clean coal, or NG.

[grappler1987]

11:32 PM on 02/06/2012

Sun shines almost every day but it is only effective in some part of the country for a few hours per day. Part of the problem is that our nation is at mid-latitude. Being close to the equator would help.

Natural gas is already dropping my heating bill. Not sure what you mean.

[banana republican]

05:16 PM on 02/05/2012

Yeah, man! I live in PA and I'm almost dead already. (HACK! HACK! COUGH! HACK!)
http://times-news.com/opinion/x1296874253/Noise-from-wind-turbines-ruins-people-s-lives

[RealityMyFriend]

04:04 AM on 02/06/2012

There are actual wind farms that are near to complety silent. The problem is these cost more money and no one wants to invest money into a source of energy that is renewable instead they want to use up the finite resouces.

[intolleft]

08:00 AM on 02/06/2012

Name one point in human history that it has used up all it's resources? Did the Stone Age end because we ran out of Stone?

[banana republican]

05:11 PM on 02/05/2012

I live in PA and hope we will be able to suck all the gas out from under NY, MD, OH, while they're still busy scratching each other eyes out trying to get their act together.

[WESmith]

10:34 PM on 02/05/2012

Sorry, you can't. That is why they fracture. The formation is 1000 times denser than concrete and gas cannot flow. Fractured shale gas wells can only produce gas within a 100 feet from the wellbore. Unfractured shale gas wells can only produce within inches of the wellbore.

[Robert Fanney]

04:34 PM on 02/05/2012

The gas industry has lied repeatedly about the available reserves of this resource. Proven reserves account for 11 years, and likely reserves end at 30 years. Fracking is just the last desperate gasp to get new supplies. And what are we sacrificing? Clean water and people's health.

Republican (oil, gas, coal) party -- dirty, dangerous, depleting.

[WESmith]

10:40 PM on 02/05/2012

Few people want hard to produce natural gas to make their electricity. Most people want cheap dirty coal to make their electricity. Most gas companies are losing money with fractured wells. They are hoping the price will go up. Of course the owners of the natural gas get their royalties and lease payments.

[pmag88]

09:48 AM on 02/06/2012

It's not American energy. It's global energy and will be sold on the global market at market prices.

No discount for Americans in return for sacrificing a resource that cannot be replaced for anywhere close to the small amount of profit made removing the product.

You'll be screwed and your children will never experience what you took for granted.

[Antifascist-08]

03:59 PM on 02/05/2012

This is fracking is it not? Why not just say so. Fracking is killing and injuring people as we speak by polluting the water.

[celcius232]

06:34 PM on 02/05/2012

Killing and injuring......really? You might want to check what discharges from your local municipal wastewater treatment plant before you go off on an industry you apparently know nothing about.

[RealityMyFriend]

04:05 AM on 02/06/2012

The fracking communites have their public water supplies controled by the frackers. So in other words they are hiding the truth. Do your research.

[pmag88]

09:54 AM on 02/06/2012

They have no treatment plants and their claim to recycle is a lie. Also, 40% of the clean soft water used to frack a well remains in the ground and will never be recovered. So, you deplete the clean water and dump the untreated waste into rivers, creeks and sreams, all of which go downstream and into the estuaries where the majority of our ocean fish spawn. Also, you'll be drinking showering in water so hard and radioactive you'll notice it in months and at most a few years. You were warned.

[WESmith]

10:46 PM on 02/05/2012

Frack fluid is made from K-Y Jelly without the antifreeze.
At home, we use K-Y Jelly without the sand.
That is the only difference.
That is why oil field workers call it frack fluid and fracking.
A little bedroom humor gone awry.

Remember when the US Government tried using nuclear bombs to fracture gas wells in Colorado? I like people pumping food additives into wells to fracture them better.

[pmag88]

09:59 AM on 02/06/2012

The 'secret ingredient' is the clean soft water which acts as a surfactant to help permeate and also cuts down the friction so it cuts better. That's why they won't talk about what's really in it. If it were just some chemical that couldn't migrate into the water table and that you could leave in the ground, entombed forever, there would be no issue.

[observingstupiditydaily]

06:27 PM on 02/06/2012

Yeah and the moon is made of cheese, heard it from you before and I wish I could say it's laughable.
Shouldn't you be out in New Mexico killing and skinning animals? I mean you have done it all over there on the darkside WE.