Posts Tagged ‘leader staff writer’

Lawmaker delivers rebuttal

Elected official who held hearing in area last week on natural gas drilling says he was responding to pro-energy group attack.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

A state representative says he was unfairly attacked in a press release by a pro-energy group after holding a public hearing in the Back Mountain last week.

State Rep. Camille “Bud” George, majority chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, issued a rebuttal Friday, saying that “money and misinformation are the hallmarks of a gas industry attack titled, ‘Rep. George’s Fact-Free Fact-Finding Mission.’”

Energy In Depth sent the press release to media outlets on Thursday, a day after George convened a committee hearing at 1 p.m. in the Lehman Township Municipal Building to hear testimony on the impact of Marcellus Shale drilling and proposed legislation that would put more environmental safeguards in place.

State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, invited George to have a hearing in her district, where EnCana Gas & Oil USA plans to drill the first natural gas exploratory well in Luzerne County in May or June. The well will be drilled in Lehman Township.

Area residents and lawmakers are concerned for many reasons, including the fact that the drill site would be less than two miles from the Huntsville and Ceaseville reservoirs, which supply drinking water to nearly 100,000 area residents.

Energy In Depth’s press release classified the hearing as a “pep rally staged by anti-energy activists and like-minded public officials in Northeast Pennsylvania.”

“Characterized as a ‘field hearing’ by … George, who held the event as far away as he could from his home in Clearfield County, the forum included representatives from the Sierra Club and Clean Water Action league, as well as testimony from a local podiatrist and someone describing himself as a ‘naturalopathic’ physician. The only thing missing? Anyone in possession of real, genuine facts related to responsible gas exploration in the Commonwealth,” the release stated.

In response, George said the most troubling aspect of “the attack by Energy In Depth, whose members include the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, is its slur of concerned lawmakers and citizens of Northeastern Pennsylvania as anti-energy activists.”

George noted that the committee had a hearing on Feb. 18 in Clearfield County, where the president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition and executives from some of the leading gas companies in Pennsylvania, including Range Resources and Chesapeake Energy, testified. He also participated two weeks ago in a House Democratic Policy Committee hearing in Ebensburg that included testimony from Chief Oil & Gas and Chesapeake. Ebensburg is in the Altoona area.

“The industry has not been an unwanted stranger at hearings,” George said.

Energy In Depth’s press release then listed quotes – pulled from a story in The Times Leader – of people who testified and rebutted them with quotes from gas industry representatives, a state Department of Environmental Protection fact sheet and Gov. Ed Rendell.

Energy In Depth pointed to testimony from Mundy in which she said she supports House Bill 2213 “which would among other things … require full disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.”

The organization then pointed to a DEP fact sheet which states that drilling companies “must disclose the names of all chemicals to be used and stored at a drilling site … that must be submitted to DEP as part of the permit application process. These plans contain copies of material safety data sheets for all chemicals … This information is on file with DEP and available to landowners, local governments and emergency responders.”

But George said that “full disclosure of the chemicals – not just the trade names – and how they are used is not (now) required.”

“The precise chemical identities and concentrations and how and when they are employed can be crucial to emergency responders and remediation efforts after spills, and is at the crux of efforts to remove the infamous ‘Halliburton Loophole’ that exempts the industry from oversight by the Environmental Protection Agency,” George said.

“The gas industry can bloat campaign coffers with money, buy discredited and ridiculed studies and poison the debate by taking statements out of context. However, its ‘best management practices’ should never be taken at face value to be the best for Pennsylvania,” George said.

Steve Mocarsky, a Times leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7311.

Copyright: Times Leader

Stalled bill would tax drillers

Revenue from tax on underground resources seen as windfall, but bill would need more support to pass.

Local municipalities could tap into the potential natural gas drilling windfall if state lawmakers are able to push through legislation that’s been stalled for more than a year.

House Bill 1373 would amend the state General County Assessment Law to explicitly make underground resources such as natural gas and oil subject to real estate assessment and taxation. The bill would require gas companies to pay taxes on the resources they extract, but wouldn’t add any tax burden to landowners.

“We’re concerned about these companies coming in and sucking up huge profits at the expense of citizens of Pennsylvania,” said state Rep. Eddie Pashinski, D-Wilkes-Barre, who is a co-sponsor of the bill.

Introduced in May 2007 by House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, the bill was drafted in reaction to a state Supreme Court decision that ruled taxing those resources wasn’t specifically enumerated in the law. The amendment would preempt that ruling by making taxation of those resources part of the law.

Tom Andrews, DeWeese’s press secretary, said the push for the bill came from DeWeese’s constituent municipalities in western Pennsylvania, which had been relying on revenue from the resource taxes for years before it was shut off by the court decision.

However, the bill has been stalled in the House Finance Committee since May 2007, and sentiment among supporters is that state Senate Republicans, on principle, won’t support a tax bill.

“At this point, I don’t think it has the support to pass in the House, pass in the Senate and be signed by the governor, so that’s why we’ve held off on pushing it out of the House,” Andrews said.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

Copyright: Times Leader