Group: Corbett should heed drilling study
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Group__Corbett_should_heed_drilling_study_05-09-2011.html
Posted: May 10, 2011
STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com
The head of a local group that supports more restrictions on natural gas drilling says a scientific report released on Monday substantiates group members’ concerns and should be evidence enough for Gov. Tom Corbett to impose a moratorium on drilling in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Tom Jiunta, president and founder of the Luzerne County-based Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, said a report by a team of Duke University scientists that is to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, “documented pathways from where they frack to drinking water supplies.”
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the injection of water, sand and a low concentration of chemicals into a shale formation a couple thousand feet underground at high pressure to stimulate the release of natural gas from the formation. A perforation gun lowered into the well casing detonates charges that create initial fractures in the shale.
Jiunta said a Cornell University scientist, Anthony Ingraffea, showed his group slides indicating that scientists believe the fractures are “unpredictable.”
“If pathways exist for methane, then it also exists for the toxic heavy metals found underground along with the brine solutions that are hazardous and the fracking chemicals,” Jiunta said. “It’s common sense.”
“Gov. Corbett said last week he would rely on science, not emotion” for making decisions related to natural gas exploration. “There’s plenty of science out there now, and I think this proves it,” Jiunta said.
In a prepared statement, Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said Pennsylvania has “an extensive and well-documented history of naturally occurring methane impacting private water wells, long before Marcellus development began just a few years ago.”
She called the report “at best inconclusive. Further, the fact that is was prepared, in part, by a vocal and outspoken natural gas production critic raises a host of questions regarding academic veracity.”
Travis Windle, spokesman for the coalition, pointed to a New York Times article that quoted John Conrad, a New York hydrogeologist “closely affiliated with the drilling industry,” who said the researchers may have “jumped the gun” by relying on only post-drilling data without testing water wells before drilling occurred in the area.
Windle also noted that Conrad told The New York Times that the thermogenic methane found in the water wells, which many scientists say comes from the same deep gas layers where drilling occurs, could be naturally occurring.
Local drilling opponent not surprised by findings
http://citizensvoice.com/news/local-drilling-opponent-not-surprised-by-findings-1.1144256#axzz1LwpBiOFT
Elizabeth Skrapits
Published: May 10, 2011
Dr. Thomas Jiunta said Monday the Duke University study shows drilling 'is a pathway' for methane to get into drinking water.
Results of a study by scientists at Duke University showing a link between natural gas drilling and water well contamination come as no surprise to a local drilling opponent.
Dr. Thomas Jiunta, a co-founder of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, said the study proves what environmentalists have been saying all along: that there’s “definitely a chance and a likelihood” for gas to migrate along the pathways between drilling sites and drinking water sources.
“The thing that I think is important is that shows it’s a pathway,” he said. “The methane itself isn’t necessarily dangerous to drink, but it’s explosive, obviously, as it builds up.”
If methane can travel through the pathways, other chemicals, heavy metals and the water used in hydraulic fracturing could also migrate through them, Jiunta said. Pressure in the natural gas wells could increase that migration, he said.
“That just blows my mind that they’re still allowing this (gas drilling), after what we know. It’s just one thing after another,” Jiunta said.
Scientific Study Links Flammable Drinking Water to Fracking
http://www.propublica.org/article/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-to-fracking
by Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica, May 9, 2011
For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire.
The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks.
The research was conducted by four scientists at Duke University. They found that levels of flammable methane gas in drinking water wells increased to dangerous levels when those water supplies were close to natural gas wells. They also found that the type of gas detected at high levels in the water was the same type of gas that energy companies were extracting from thousands of feet underground, strongly implying that the gas may be seeping underground through natural or manmade faults and fractures, or coming from cracks in the well structure itself.
“Our results show evidence for methane contamination of shallow drinking water systems in at least three areas of the region and suggest important environmental risks accompanying shale gas exploration worldwide,” the article states.
The group tested 68 drinking water wells in the Marcellus and Utica shale drilling areas in northeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York State. Sixty of those wells were tested for dissolved gas. While most of the wells had some methane, the water samples taken closest to the gas wells had on average 17 times the levels detected in wells further from active drilling. The group defined an active drilling area as within one kilometer, or about six tenths of a mile, from a gas well.
The average concentration of the methane detected in the water wells near drilling sites fell squarely within a range that the U.S Department of Interior says is dangerous and requires urgent “hazard mitigation” action, according to the study.
The researchers did not find evidence that the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing had contaminated any of the wells they tested, allaying for the time being some of the greatest fears among environmentalists and drilling opponents.
But they were alarmed by what they described as a clear correlation between drilling activity and the seepage of gas contaminants underground, a danger in itself and evidence that pathways do exist for contaminants to migrate deep within the earth.
“We certainly didn’t expect to see such a strong relationship between the concentration of methane in water and the nearest gas wells. That was a real surprise,” said Robert Jackson, a biology professor at Duke and one of the report’s authors.
Methane contamination of drinking water wells has been a common complaint among people living in gas drilling areas across the country. A 2009 investigation by ProPublica revealed that methane contamination from drilling was widespread, including in Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In several cases, homes blew up after gas seeped into their basements or water supplies. In Pennsylvania a 2004 accident killed three people, including a baby.
In Dimock, Pa., where part of the Duke study was performed, some residents’ water wells exploded or their water could be lit on fire. In at least a dozen cases in Colorado, ProPublica’s investigation found, methane had infiltrated drinking water supplies that residents said were clean until hydraulic fracturing was performed nearby.
The drilling industry and some state regulators described some of these cases as “anecdotal” and said they were either unconnected to drilling activity or were an isolated problem. But the consistency of the Duke findings raises questions about how unusual and widespread such cases of methane contamination may be.
“It suggests that at least in the region we looked, this is a more general problem than people expected,” Jackson told ProPublica.
For those who live in the midst of this problem, the report serves as long-awaited vindication. “We weren’t just blowing smoke. What we were talking about was the truth,” said Ron Carter, a Dimock resident whose water went bad when drilling began there in 2008 and was later tested as part of the study. “Now I’m happy that at least something helps prove out our theory.”
Methane is not regulated in drinking water, and while research is limited, it is not currently believed to be harmful to drink. But the methane is dangerous because as it collects in enclosed spaces it can asphyxiate people nearby, or lead to an explosion.
To determine where the methane in the wells they tested came from, the researchers ran it through a molecular fingerprinting process called an isotopic analysis. Water samples furthest from gas drilling showed traces of biogenic methane—a type of methane that can naturally appear in water from biological decay. But samples taken closer to drilling had high concentrations of thermogenic methane, which comes from the same hydrocarbon layers where gas drilling is targeted. That—plus the proximity to the gas wells—told the researchers that the contamination was linked to the drilling processes.
In addition to the methane, other types of gases were also detected, providing further evidence that the gas originated with the hydrocarbon deposits miles beneath the earth and that it was unique to the active gas drilling areas. Ethane, another component of natural gas, and other hydrocarbons were detected in 81 percent of water wells near active gas drilling, but in only 9 percent of water wells further away. Propane and butane were also detected in some drilling area wells.
The report noted that as much as a mile of rock separated the bottom of the shallow drinking water wells from the deep zones fractured for gas, and identified several ways in which fluids or the gas contaminants could move underground: The substances could be displaced by the pressures underground; could travel through new fractures or connections to faults created by the hydraulic fracturing process; or could leak from the well casing itself somewhere closer to the surface.
The geology in Pennsylvania and New York, they said, is tectonically active with faults and other pathways through the rock. They noted that leaky well casings were the most likely cause of the contamination, but couldn’t rule out long-range underground migration, which they said “might be possible due to both the extensive fracture systems reported for these formations and the many older, uncased wells drilled and abandoned.”
The water was also analyzed for signs that dangerous fluids from inside the gas wells might have escaped into water supplies. The group tested for salts, radium and other chemicals that, if detected, would have signaled that the produced water or natural fluids in the well’s target zone were making it to the aquifers. But those types of fluids were not found. The group did not test for fracking chemicals or hydrocarbons like benzene, relying instead on the saline or radioactive compounds like radium as indicators.
In an interview, Jackson said that gas was more likely to migrate underground than liquid chemicals. Based on his findings, he doesn’t believe the toxic chemicals pumped into the ground during fracturing are likely to end up in water supplies the same way the methane did. “I’m not ready to use the word impossible,” he said, “but unlikely.”
In a white paper the group issued along with the journal article, Jackson and the others acknowledged the uncertainty and called for more research. “Contamination is often stated to be impossible due to the distance between the well and the drinking water,” they wrote. “Although this seems reasonable in most (and possibly all) cases, field and modeling studies should be undertaken to confirm this assumption… Understanding any cases where this assumption is incorrect will be important—when, where, and why they occur—to limit problems with hydraulic fracturing operations.”
A hydrogeologist closely affiliated with the drilling industry raised questions about the study. “It’s possible, assuming their measurements are accurate, that all they have done is document the natural conditions of the aquifer,” said John Conrad, president of Conrad Geosciences in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Conrad spoke with ProPublica at the suggestion of Energy In Depth, a drilling industry advocacy group, but said that he did not work for EID.
He said that the thermogenic methane — which many scientists say comes from the same deep gas layers where drilling occurs — could be naturally occurring. He also said the researchers didn’t test enough wells to support their conclusions, though he could not say how many wells would have been appropriate.
Conrad said the most likely cause for the contamination identified by the Duke researchers — that the gas was leaking out of faulty well casings — seemed implausible.
“For their assumptions to hold up there would have to be more than just the occasional bad cement job,” he said. “They are implying that where you see hydraulic fracturing you should expect to see elevated methane. We are aware of faulty cement jobs. But we don’t believe that it is common and we certainly don’t believe that it is universal.”
The Duke study precedes a national study by the Environmental Protection Agency into the dangers of hydraulic fracturing that is expected to be finished sometime next year. Last year the EPA found that some chemicals known to be used in fracturing were among the contaminants detected in 11 residential drinking water wells in Pavillion, Wy.—where more than 200 natural gas wells have been drilled in recent years—but that investigation is continuing and the scientists haven’t concluded that the contamination is linked with drilling or hydraulic fracturing.
The release of the Duke research could immediately shape the increasingly intense public debate over drilling and hydraulic fracturing, especially in some of the areas where the research was conducted. Pennsylvania, which holds drilling companies liable for drinking water contamination within 1000 feet of a gas well, might consider the fact that the Duke researchers found the contamination extended to about 3,000 feet, Jackson said. New York State has a moratorium in place for hydraulic fracturing of horizontally-drilled wells—which cover more area and require more chemicals—through the end of June to allow for more consideration of the risks. “I would extend that at least temporarily,” Jackson said.
Congress, too, is taking note.
“This study provides eye-opening scientific evidence about methane contamination and the risks that irresponsible natural gas drilling poses for drinking water supplies,” said Congressman Maurice Hinchey, D-NY. “It provides yet another reason why more study of the environmental and health risks associated with hydraulic fracturing is needed.”
Hinchey is one of several Democratic members of Congress who recently re-introduced the FRAC Act, which calls for public disclosure of the chemicals used underground. The bill, which is currently languishing in the House, would remove an exemption in federal law that prohibits the EPA from regulating hydraulic fracturing.
DEP withholds driller’s blowout response, saying it is under review
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/dep-withholds-driller-s-blowout-response-saying-it-is-under-review-1.1143130#axzz1LlOmCfIh
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: May 7, 2011
The Department of Environmental Protection is reviewing a natural gas driller’s response to a violation notice that asked why and how a well failed in Bradford County in late April causing wastewater to flow into state waterways.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. submitted its response to the violation notice on the evening of April 29, the deadline set by state regulators. Both DEP and Chesapeake declined to release the response.
“We are not making this information publicly available at this time as we need to carefully examine it as part of our on-going review of the blowout,” DEP spokesman Daniel Spadoni said.
The Times-Tribune submitted a Right-To-Know request for a copy of the response on Friday.
Chesapeake lost control of the Atgas 2H well in LeRoy Township late on April 19 during a hydraulic fracturing operation. An apparent failure of a flange below an above-ground piece of equipment called a frack stack caused thousands of gallons of tainted wastewater to overwhelm the company’s containment systems and flow into Towanda Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River.
The company has said tests “indicate only minimal environmental impact as a result of this incident.” State regulators confirmed last week that the spill killed several frogs and tadpoles in a farmer’s pond.
In its violation notice, DEP directed Chesapeake to tell the agency what chemicals and other materials it used to fracture the well, what failed at the wellhead and caused the spill, what exactly spilled into the environment and why it took the company 12 hours to bring a well control specialist to the site from Texas when a similar firm is located in Pennsylvania.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Pa. group wants stronger limits on gas drilling
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9N1G8480.htm
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG, Pa.
Policymakers in Pennsylvania should immediately strengthen rules that make areas around sensitive ecosystems, water sources and places where people live or work off limits to natural gas drilling, an environmental group said Thursday.
The message comes as drilling intensifies in the hotly pursued Marcellus Shale formation, the nation’s largest-known natural gas reservoir, and state officials consider adding extra safety precautions around drilling sites.
PennEnvironment said it has found permitted Marcellus Shale sites within two miles of numerous day cares, schools and hospitals in Pennsylvania. It also said that there are hundreds of instances of environmental violations flagged by state regulators at Marcellus Shale drilling sites within two miles of schools or day cares.
Current Pennsylvania law provides for a buffer of 200 feet between a drilling site and buildings and private water wells, as well as a 100-foot buffer around many waterways and wetlands. PennEnvironment’s Erika Staaf said her organization ideally would like to see mile-wide buffers as protection from potential drilling-related air or water contamination, although it is unlikely that the state Legislature would approve that.
“We have to step back and say, ‘What is the right distance and what are we able to see move through the Legislature?'” Staaf said. “But what we know right now is the distance (allowed in current law) is too close, and it needs to be farther away.”
A spokesman for one of the leading Marcellus Shale drilling companies, Range Resources Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas, said pollution from a drilling site is no more dangerous than a construction site.
“By (PennEnvironment’s) definition then, you shouldn’t have any construction within two miles of a school,” Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella said.
Pitzarella said the buffers are valuable as a way protect neighbors against the nuisance and inconvenience of drilling a well, and Range supports a 500-foot buffer between a well and any school or occupied residential or business structure, unless the owner permits it to be closer.
The Marcellus Shale formation lies primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania, however, is the center of activity, with nearly 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and many thousands more planned in the coming years as thick shale emerges as an affordable, plentiful and profitable source of natural gas.
At least a half-dozen bills awaiting action in the GOP-controlled Legislature would increase some or all of those buffers. Many of the bills would maintain exceptions that are in current law.
For instance, a company would be able to get permission to drill within a buffer if, for instance, it secured an owner’s permission or took extra precautions that satisfy state regulators.
Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Chairwoman Mary Jo White, R-Venango, wants to wait to hear what Gov. Tom Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission reports before considering at least three bills in her committee, a spokesman said. The commission is due to report in July.
One of the Senate bills, introduced by Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming, would increase the existing buffer around water wells and buildings to 500 feet. It would leave intact the 100-foot buffer around waterways and wetlands, but it would allow state regulators to impose a 500-foot buffer around them for the storage of hazardous chemicals or materials used in drilling.
In the House, a bill introduced by Rep. Karen Boback, R-Luzerne, would increase existing buffers to 1,000 feet. Clearfield County Rep. Bud George, the ranking Democrat on the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, has a bill to establish 1,000-foot barriers around buildings and water wells. For drillers that use hydraulic fracturing or horizontal drilling, his will would establish buffers of 1,000 feet around groundwater sources and 2,500 feet around surface water sources.
For decades, energy companies have drilled shallow oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. However, in the last three years, fresh environmental concerns have arisen with the influx of energy companies using high volumes of chemical-laced water in a process known as hydraulic fracturing to drill lucrative and deep Marcellus Shale wells. They also use the recent innovation of horizontal drilling underground to increase a well’s production.
Marcellus Shale tax payments in spotlight
http://standardspeaker.com/news/marcellus-shale-tax-payments-in-spotlight-1.1140777
BY ROBERT SWIFT (HARRISBURG BUREAU CHIEF)
Published: May 3, 2011
HARRISBURG – The natural gas drilling industry has paid more than $1 billion in state taxes since the exploration of the Marcellus Shale formation got under way in 2006, according to an analysis released Monday by the state Revenue Department.
However, a Democratic senator found Marcellus Shale drillers have registered some 500 subsidiary corporations in Delaware during the past five years to take advantage of a Pennsylvania tax loophole.
Sen. Christine Tartaglione, D-2, Philadelphia, said on Monday that the subsidiaries have been created using the so-called Delaware loophole that legally allows Pennsylvania businesses headquartered in other states to avoid paying the state corporate income tax on their operations here. The senator based her estimate on her own research of public records in Delaware.
Tartaglione called on Revenue Secretary-designate Dan Meuser to audit the tax return filings of Marcellus Shale firms as they relate to expenses and deductions claimed for Delaware companies. She was joined by several colleagues, including Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald, who said they want the Republican-controlled General Assembly to consider closing the Delaware loophole as part of the next state budget.
Tartaglione has introduced legislation to end that practice with “combined reporting,” a mechanism that would require businesses to add together the profits of parent firms and subsidiaries that are integrated economically when filing tax returns. Businesses would pay taxes on an apportioned share of the combined income of the entire corporate group.
“When 70 percent aren’t paying the tax, that’s a violation of every other taxpayer that’s paying the burden,” said Blake.
He said that ending the loophole would enable the state to lower the CNI tax rate, currently at 9.99 percent, by 25 percent.
Business groups have said that combined reporting will make Pennsylvania less competitive because international firms will be reluctant to subject their entire operations on a worldwide scale to state taxes.
Meuser said he has been given clear authority by the governor to enforce state tax laws to discourage tax evasion. He also emphasized the importance of reducing the high state corporate net income tax rate of 9.99 percent.
In his department’s analysis of state taxes paid by the natural gas industry since 2006, the $1 billion is in line with the general reports about economic activity in the drilling boom areas in Northeast Pennsylvania and other sections of the state, said Meuser.
Industry tax payments are growing at a quick rate, said Mr. Meuser. He said that 857 oil and gas companies and their affiliates paid a total of $238 million in state taxes (corporate income, sales, capital stock and franchise and employer withholding) through April. The total state taxes paid by these companies in 2010 was $218 million.
The analysis is based on taxes paid by drilling firms and their subsidiaries, direct suppliers, pipeline companies and distributors, he added.
The analysis attributes $214 million in state personal income taxes paid since 2006 to lease payments going to landowners, royalty income and sales of assets.
Gov. Tom Corbett ordered the analysis shortly after taking office. It appears as debate intensifies at the statehouse over whether the gas industry should be subject to a special state tax or local impact fee.
rswift@timesshamrock.com
Williams Production Appalachia has no plans to drill into Utica Shale
http://citizensvoice.com/news/williams-has-no-plans-to-drill-into-utica-shale-1.1140376#axzz1LCf5p0Sg
By Elizabeth Skrapits (Staff Writer)
Published: May 2, 2011
Beneath the deep-lying Marcellus Shale lies the even deeper Utica Shale, a rock formation that geologists say also has the potential to be rich in natural gas.
However, nobody is tapping into it in Northeastern Pennsylvania just yet, and the Utica remains largely unexplored in the rest of the state.
The state Department of Environmental Protection issued Williams Production Appalachia LLC a permit on Feb. 4 to drill deeper for its exploratory well on Route 487 in Sugarloaf Township, Columbia County, past the Benton Foundry.
The permit sparked rumors Williams planned to drill into the Utica Shale, but company spokeswoman Helen Humphreys says they’re not true.
“I know that we are not going into the Utica Shale at all,” she said.
The plan is to drill down past the Marcellus Shale to tap into the Onondaga limestone formation beneath, then go back up into the Marcellus, Humphreys said. The well has been drilled and the next step will be to hydraulically fracture it, but she said she didn’t have a date for when it will be done.
A map issued by DEP on April 5 shows that, like the Marcellus, the Utica Shale runs completely through Northeastern Pennsylvania including Luzerne, Lackawanna, Wyoming and Columbia counties.
Although DEP keeps track of Marcellus Shale drilling permits, the Utica is still pretty much off the radar for the state agency.
“We don’t have anything really identifying the formation in our system right now,” said Dave English of the DEP Bureau of Oil & Gas Management. “Basically all we’re tracking at this point in time is the Marcellus.”
There have been permits issued for the Utica Shale – although not many, and none in Northeastern Pennsylvania – and there are several other shale formations being tested, English said.
Range Resources, the first company to drill a Marcellus Shale well in Pennsylvania, in 2004, is a pioneer in the state’s portion of the Utica Shale as well.
Last year, the company drilled a productive well in Beaver County. Range Resources President and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Ventura reported in an April 27 conference call the company is planning a second horizontal well in the Utica Shale later this year.
eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072
Commentary: Pa. Gov. Tom Corbett ignores critics, stays course
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/04/commentary_pa_gov_tom_corbett.html
Published: Friday, April 29, 2011, 9:27 AM
By Laura Vecsey
Commentary: Pa. Gov. Tom Corbett ignores critics, stays course
And on the 101st day of his reign, Gov. Tom Corbett told state colleges they could solve their budget problems by drilling for natural gas in deposits under their campuses.
Can’t wait to hear what Joe Paterno will say about having to design a new offense to work around a drill rig on the 15-yard line. There could be gas under Penn State, which could be renamed “Marcellus U.,” according to Corbett’s line of thinking.
If there’s one, clear example why Pennsylvania’s new governor is not exactly excelling at crowd-pleasing, his suggestion Thursday about campus drilling says it all.
With such outlandish flouting of public sentiment about drilling and an extraction tax on natural gas, people might be thinking: What IS Tom Corbett thinking?
Here’s a guess: “Polls, schmolls.”
So what if the new governor’s approval ratings are in the tank?
Who cares that a chunk of people who voted for him regret their decision?
He could be Attila the Hun and guess what? It doesn’t matter.
He’s not running for office now. He won. He’s in for another three years and eight months, which is about six lifetimes for a politician, maybe nine.
Critics are calling him One-Term Tommy. But what if he turns out to be Nine-Lives Corbett?
“We may disagree with his choices and the random nature of his choices, but no one can dispute what he’s up against,” Philadelphia political strategist Larry Ceisler said.
“He is what we think he is. He’s not a showboat. He’s a prosecutor who I don’t think has yet to make the transition to leader, so it will be interesting to see if that transition takes place over the next three years. Can you teach an old dog new tricks?” Ceisler said.
Most political analysts insist it’s too soon to tell about Corbett, even as he polarizes voters over his backing of school vouchers and his refusal to impose an extraction tax on natural gas in the Marcellus Shale — a confounding stance given that shale drillers expect a tax.
“First impressions of new governors are usually not lasting impressions for most Pennsylvania voters,” said G. Terry Madonna, the Franklin & Marshall political analyst.
“In fact, Corbett seems to be playing out a familiar script in his first year in office. With few exceptions, Pennsylvania governors in recent history have had a rocky first year in office, always fail to impress the voters that first year and are always re-elected three years later.”
Since 1970, all but one modern governor has had a turbulent initial year in office — a year so tempestuous each of them was labeled a one termer early on, Madonna said.
“Yet each of them was also re-elected comfortably. The only governor to have a tight re-election campaign, Dick Thornburgh, was also the only governor to have a solid first year.”
Still, Corbett’s ratings are historically low.
A Quinnipiac Poll this week found that 37 percent of voters disapprove of Corbett’s job as governor, compared with 11 percent disapproval in the group’s Feb. 16 survey, tripling Corbett’s disapproval rating since he unveiled his budget.
Thirty-nine percent of those surveyed approve of the job Corbett is doing.
Last week, Public Policy Polling showed that among independents, Corbett only has a 31 percent approval rating. In November, Corbett won the independent votes by 18 percentage points over Democrat Dan Onorato.
But for the new governor who was swept in during a national surge favoring conservative Republicans, this is exactly the time to be spending some political capital.
“Corbett is smart to make the hard choices now, early in his administration,” said former Dauphin County Commissioner Lowman Henry of the Lincoln Institute.
“If he can get the budget balanced, improve the state’s business climate and the economy improves, the election is three and a half years away and he can take credit for having made the tough choices and putting us back on the right track.”
Henry said the current recession is so severe government and its programs cannot escape the ill effects.
“We can’t afford double- and triple-the-rate-of-inflation increases in education spending any more, and so the gravy train is over. That is bound to incite the special interests, but grass-roots taxpayers are pleased he is finally cutting off the never-ending flow of money,” he said.
Still, it’s interesting to see some Pennsylvania voters recoil at their gubernatorial choice. Corbett’s Facebook page contains myriad appeals to the former attorney general about his agenda, which includes increased prison funding while slashing education, including higher ed.
“Governor Corbett, I voted for you but I am starting to regret my decision,” said Chad Germer, an auto technician from Elizabethtown.
“You need to re-think your education cuts and the lack of taxing all the well-drilling companies who are destroying the natural beauty of our state. If you ever would like to have a conversation with one of your voters, look me up.”
Corbett does not have a knack for cozy chats with voters, or the media. But after a hands-off approach that has startled even top-ranking Republican leaders, Corbett has started to make the rounds to sell his budget.
On Wednesday, Corbett spent his 100-day anniversary in Pittsburgh touring Google.
“My budget is a commitment to Pennsylvania’s workers,” Corbett said.
Corbett’s budget would cut state spending by 3 percent. He has taken his no-tax pledge so seriously that he has yet to flinch on his opposition to an extraction tax.
“Where the state can help, we’re here to help. And where we can keep out of the way, we will.”
Corbett might not be very appealing, but it’s unlikely he cares. Not now.
Senator proposes per well impact fee
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/senator-proposes-per-well-impact-fee-1.1139222#axzz1Kowy0Mfv
By Robert Swift (Harrisburg Bureau Chief)
Published: April 29, 2011
HARRISBURG – A top Senate Republican leader unveiled a proposal Thursday to levy a fee on each producing Marcellus Shale well to help local governments offset the impact of costly drilling activities.
Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, wants to levy a base $10,000 fee annually on each well. The base fee would be adjusted for increases in the volume of natural gas produced and price of gas (currently at $4.25 per 1,000 cubic feet) on the market. The senator outlined a scenario where the base fee could quickly increase to $25,000 per well.
Scarnati wants to make the fee retroactive for 2010 production. He estimates the fee could generate $121 million by March 1 and potentially $150 million in 2014 as more wells are drilled.
Revenue distribution
The senator would give the state Public Utility Commission the job of collecting the per-well fee and distributing revenues.
Up to 60 percent of the fee revenue would go to municipalities and counties with producing wells under the proposal, as well as to other municipalities in that county. Within that breakdown, 36 percent of revenues would go to counties with producing wells, 37 percent to municipalities with wells and 27 percent to neighboring municipalities in those counties.
Local officials could use the revenue to maintain and repair roads and bridges, improve wastewater and sewage plants, protect water resources and assist local emergency services.
The remaining 40 percent would go to environmental and infrastructure projects overseen by the Commonwealth Financing Authority and to county conservation districts.
Some parts of the proposal are still being developed, such as a requirement that a municipality receiving impact fee revenue not adopt zoning ordinances more restrictive than a model zoning ordinance, to be drawn up by the PUC. It’s unclear whether the model ordinance would address such issues as a set-back for wells from water sources.
Debate in state
Scarnati’s long-awaited fee proposal marks a major development in a statehouse debate stretching back several years on what benefits should accrue to Pennsylvania citizens from the development of the deep pockets of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation.
He offered this proposal as an alternative to a state severance tax on natural gas production. Pennsylvania appeared on the brink of enacting a severance tax last year, but prospects faded greatly when Gov. Tom Corbett who campaigned against a severance tax took office in January.
Scarnati’s proposal appears following months of painstaking behind-the-scenes negotiations and at a strategic moment just before the Republican majority legislative caucuses offer counterproposals to Corbett’s proposed $27.3 billion state budget.
Scarnati said the specter of looming state spending cuts in education and social programs to address long-term deficits makes it imperative for lawmakers to act on impact fee legislation at this time. He said his sense is that the public won’t accept budget cuts if there is no impact fee on the natural gas industry.
“I don’t see how we can get the budget process done with all the cuts that are occurring across so many different lines without addressing an impact fee for this industry,” he added.
Scarnati said his proposal is crafted to meet the governor’s stipulation about fee revenue not going to the state General Fund. The governor is waiting for recommendations about an impact fee from his Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission.
“This proposal is well-timed, because our communities need a decision on this matter soon,” said Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township. “The distribution of the revenue derived is probably the best yet in terms of addressing community and environmental impacts.”
Sen. John Yudichak, D-Nanticoke, called the proposal a serious one which recognizes that gas companies must pay a fair share. But he expressed concerns about its limited revenue potential. Yudichak recently introduced a severance tax bill.
House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, D-Pittsburgh, said the proposal falls short of what a severance tax would yield.
“This weak alternative is certainly not enough to protect the environment and ensure clean drinking water,” he added.
Scarnati’s proposal drew support from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. But Myron Arnowitt of Clean Water Action said the proposal is troublesome because municipalities would have to give up their zoning rights to receive fee revenue.
rswift@timesshamrock.com
Corbett says colleges could drill for cash
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Corbett_says_colleges_could_drill_for_cash_04-28-2011.html
Posted: April 29, 2011
Six of the 14 state campuses in Pennsylvania are located on Marcellus Shale formation.
Gov. Tom Corbett speaking at the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce.
EDINBORO — Some Pennsylvania universities should consider drilling for natural gas below campus to help solve their financial problems, Gov. Tom Corbett said Thursday.
The Erie Times-News reported that Corbett made the suggestion during an appearance at a meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of Councils of Trustees at Edinboro University.
Corbett said six of the 14 campuses in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education are located on the Marcellus Shale formation, part of a vast region of underground natural gas deposits that are currently being explored and extracted.
The Republican governor’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts in July would cut $2 billion from education and reduce aid to colleges and universities by 50 percent. The newspaper said Corbett emphasized the cuts are only proposals and that funding for education could change as he negotiates the budget with state lawmakers.
The Marcellus Shale formation lies primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio; Pennsylvania, however, is the center of activity, with more than 2,000 wells drilled in the past three years and many thousands more planned.
Drilling for gas in deep shale deposits is emerging as a major new source of energy that supporters say is homegrown, cheap and friendlier environmentally than coal or oil.
But shale drilling requires injecting huge volumes of water underground to help shatter the rock — a process called hydraulic fracturing. Some of that water returns to the surface, in addition to the gas, in the form of ultra-salty brine tainted with metals like barium and strontium, trace radioactivity and small amounts of toxic chemicals injected by the drilling companies.
Most big gas states require drillers to dump their wastewater into deep shafts drilled into the earth to prevent it from contaminating surface water. Although it has moved to limit it, Pennsylvania still allows hundreds of millions of gallons of the partially treated drilling wastewater to be discharged into rivers from which communities draw drinking water.