Page 1 of 3 https://www.wsj.com/articles/pennsylvania-governor-and-fracking-sector-face-off-on-budget- regulations-1435603330

Pennsylvania Governor and Fracking Sector on Budget, Regulations Oil-and-gas sector expresses doubt over Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s support for booming industry

Kris Maher The Wall Street Journal

Since taking over from a Republican administration this year, Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf repeatedly has said he supports the state’s booming shale gas industry. But lately, the industry is questioning his commitment.

State regulators, who have begun reviewing dozens of environmental cases the previous administration handled, recently imposed an $8.9 million fine for a gas well they said is contaminating drinking water— the largest ever against a gas operator in state history.

The state is also proposing a raft of stricter drilling rules to prevent wastewater from contaminating drinking water sources. And industry officials are upset that the Wolf administration earlier this month slashed its estimate of state jobs supported by the shale-gas industry to 89,000 from the previous administration’s estimate of more than 200,000.

“This administration’s words continue to be alarmingly detached from its actions as it relates to policy and regulatory matters,” said Dave Spigelmyer, president of the -based Marcellus Shale Coalition.

Jeffrey Sheridan, a spokesman for Mr. Wolf, said the administration seeks a balance between promoting development and protecting the environment. Mr. Wolf took office in January after defeating former Gov. Tom Corbett.

Mr. Sheridan said the prior administration’s industry jobs figures were inflated, including road- construction workers, truck drivers not employed in the industry, and even state regulators.

“The governor’s proposal will amount to a de facto moratorium on the development of natural gas in the Commonwealth.”

Mr. Spigelmyer said the change appeared motivated more by politics than economics. Job numbers are a key indicator of the shale boom’s importance to the state economy and are cited in debates about how much to tax and regulate drilling.

Another sore point for the industry is the governor’s appointment of cabinet members who previously worked for an environmental nonprofit organization called PennFuture, including John Quigley, head of the state Department of Environmental Protection. The group has pushed for tougher drilling rules. Page 2 of 3

Mr. Sheridan said all the appointees were confirmed by the Republican-controlled state Senate and none is biased against the gas drilling.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has exploded since 2008 into a main economic driver for Pennsylvania. The state’s natural gas production, mostly from fracked wells that tap the Marcellus Shale, exceeded 4 trillion cubic feet last year, doubling the state’s 2012 output and making Pennsylvania the nation’s second-largest gas producer behind . Fracking involves pumping millions of gallons of water and chemicals more than a mile underground to free gas deposits.

“I cannot speak for why the previous administration chose not to take action, but this administration will. ”

This year, state and local governments will receive $224 million from the fees companies are required to pay on fracked wells. Such fees have generated a total of $855 million in revenue since they were enacted in 2012.

Tensions have built as Mr. Wolf and the Republican-led legislature appear unlikely to agree on a state budget ahead of a June 30 deadline. The governor has said he will veto a budget Republicans passed over the weekend because it doesn’t include his top priorities, such as a new 5% severance tax on shale drilling that he estimates will bring in $1 billion in annual revenue to fund schools. A budget stalemate could continue for several weeks before residents begin to notice cuts to services, said experts.

Republican House Speaker Mike Turzai said he opposes the severance tax and believes the governor’s revenue estimate is too high. “The governor’s proposal will amount to a de facto moratorium on the development of natural gas in the Commonwealth,” he said.

As the issue is debated, it isn’t clear whether a new 5% severance tax on gas production would replace the current per-well fee or come in addition to it.

Pennsylvania residents continue to back shale-gas development, recent surveys show, but they have also supported a tax on production to help bridge a deficit the governor’s office estimated at over $2 billion. The state’s Independent Fiscal Office puts the shortfall at $1.5 billion.

On June 16, regulators announced an $8.9 million fine against Range Resources Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas, for allegedly failing to prevent natural gas and other substances from contaminating drinking water in Lycoming County.

Since 2008, the state has assessed $20.2 million in fines against the industry, not counting the latest fine. The highest one assessed previously was a $4.5 million fine against EQT Corp. The company is challenging the fine and declined to comment.

Regulators said Range hasn’t repaired a defective well casing. “I cannot speak for why the previous administration chose not to take action, but this administration will,” said Mr. Quigley, the state’s top environmental regulator. Page 3 of 3

Range, which is appealing the fine, said its testing showed that natural gas in 21 nearby residential wells was different from gas in Range’s well. Separate testing concluded the cement casing around the well was sound.

“We are equally confident that the environment and community are not at risk,” Range said in a statement.

Corrections & Amplifications

The largest fine Pennsylvania assessed against a natural-gas producer before this month’s $8.9 million fine was one for $4.5 million, which is being challenged. A previous version of this article cited a fine for $4.15 million without clarifying it as the largest such fine that has been paid. (June 29, 2015)

Page 1 of 1 https://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/13032603-74/report-us-natural-gas-boom-largely-due-to- marcellus-shale

Report: U.S. natural gas boom largely due to Marcellus Shale

Stephen Huba | Monday, Dec. 4, 2017, 5:15 p.m. Email Newsletters

The shale gas boom in Pennsylvania and other Appalachian states has been the chief driver of growth in U.S. natural gas production since 2012, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Monday.

According to the EIA's Drilling Productivity Report, natural gas production in the Appalachia region — namely the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays — has increased by more than 14 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) since 2012.

Drilling unconventional wells in the Appalachia region has become quite productive, the EIA said. The average monthly natural gas production per rig for new wells in the Appalachia region increased by 10.8 million cubic feet per day since January 2012.

The EIA attributes the increase to efficiency improvements in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, including faster drilling, longer laterals, advancements in technology and better targeting of wells.

Pennsylvania's natural gas production reached a new high of 15 billion cubic feet per day in October, an increase of 25 percent from year-ago levels and an increase of 80 percent from January 2013, the EIA said .

Pennsylvania accounts for 19 percent of total U.S. natural gas production and 76 percent of total Marcellus Shale production. The Marcellus formation is located primarily in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and .

Stephen Huba is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-1280, [email protected] or via Twitter @shuba_trib.

Page 1 of 3 https://www.pennlive.com/news/2018/06/marcellus_natural_gas_producti.html

Marcellus natural gas production continues to increase due to improved technology Updated Jun 22, 2018; Posted Jun 22, 2018

This graph shows the impact fees collected from Marcellus Shale drilling in recent years.

By John Beauge

Special to PennLive

UNIVERSITY PARK -- More natural gas in being produced from the Marcellus Shale than ever before, and the amount is increasing, a Penn State official says.

Thomas Murphy, director of the Penn State Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research, attributes this to improved technology that allows drillers to extract more gas for each wellpad.

Murphy's assessment was echoed by Terry Engelder, professor emeritus of geosciences at Penn State.

In April, 8.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day was produced in Bradford, Clinton, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga and Wayne counties, he said.

Figures released this week by the Public Utility Commission of 2017 impact fee distributions support what Murphy says.

The total amount of money collected from impact fees was $209 million, up from $173.26 million in 2016 and $187.7 million in 2015. In 2013 an 2014, the impact fees totaled more than $220 million.

Counties that have drilling sites receive 60 percent of the impact fees collected. The counties receiving the largest disbursements are , Susquehanna, Bradford, Greene, Lycoming, Tioga and Butler counties. Page 2 of 3

These counties received the largest impact fees from Marcellus Shale drilling.

Because technology is getting more precise, the Marcellus landscape is different from what it was five to six years ago, Murphy said.

In those days water trucks and drilling rigs were a common sight on rural roads and motel rooms were hard to find, Murphy said.

Greater efficiency of the well pads now in operation "may mean not as many motel rooms are rented out and fewer people in coffee shops," Engelder said.

"It's a classic example of an industry becoming more efficient."

There still is a demand for fracking crew members, truck drivers and mechanics, Murphy said.

The lack of transmission pipelines have been an issue in getting the gas to market, both men said.

Capacity will increase later this summer when the Atlantic Sunrise project, which runs 186 miles through Pennsylvania, is completed.

While Atlantic Sunrise will help get gas to markets in the South, little is shipped to New England because of opposition in New York State to pipelines and to fracking, the process used to release the gas from shale rock.

Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research in Washington, D.C., points out before hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling was used to tap into the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania was producing less than 200 billion cubic feet of natural gas annually. Page 3 of 3

That figure today exceeds 5 trillion cubic feet from more than 8,200 producing wells in 33 of the state's 67 counties, he said. Pennsylvania is the second largest natural gas producing state in the nation, he said.

Pennsylvania's natural gas is being shipped in the form of liquified natural gas from the Cove Point Terminal in Maryland to Japan, India and beyond, he said.

Page 1 of 2 https://www.post-gazette.com/business/powersource/2018/07/26/Marcellus-Shale-slowdown- muted-drilling-impacts-on-pennsylvania-state-forests-DCNR/stories/201807250159

LAURA LEGERE Harrisburg Bureau JUL 26, 2018 8:00 AM

A slowdown in Marcellus Shale drilling generally softened the impacts of natural gas development on state-owned forests between 2013 and 2016, according to a comprehensive monitoring report released Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Far fewer forest acres were turned into well pads, roads and pipeline pathways during the four-year study period than in 2008 through 2012, when companies moved rapidly to exploit the gas-rich shale, the report found.

But more forest edges were created in recent years as pipeline construction continued to cut through blocks of forest, the report concluded, and invasive plant species more aggressively colonized sites disturbed for natural gas infrastructure.

DCNR began a distinct program to monitor the effects of shale gas development on state forests in 2010, and the agency last released a comprehensive report of its findings in 2014.

Out of the 1.5 million acres of state forest above the Marcellus Shale, about 612,000 acres are available for gas development, either through DCNR-issued leases or in areas where the subsurface rights are privately owned. Nearly all of the development is in state forests in north-central Pennsylvania.

About 640 horizontal Marcellus wells had been drilled in state forests by the end of 2016. DCNR controls the gas rights under 473 of those. The agency said about a third of the expected Marcellus development on its leased acreage has been completed so far, and as many as 1,475 wells could eventually be drilled on the state-leased land.

Pennsylvania first began leasing state forest acres for shale development in 2008 and has not signed any new leases since 2010. Gov. Tom Wolf put a moratorium on new state forest gas leases in 2015. State courts later ruled that DCNR has the exclusive authority to decide whether to sign gas leases for state forests, and the agency has said it will not issue any more leases in parks and forests where it controls the subsurface rights.

Page 2 of 2

The existing leases have been lucrative. Between 2008 and 2016, gas royalties and other payments related to drilling in state forests raised $832 million for the state, the report said. Of the more than 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas produced in Pennsylvania in 2016, 9 percent came from wells in state forests.

The trade-off has been “noticeable changes to the forest landscape” in the north-central Pennsylvania region that offers the largest block of core forest habitat in the state, the report said. Shale gas wells, roads and pipelines fragment contiguous forests into smaller parcels, reducing the amount of deep forest habitat for the plant and animal species that thrive there and changing the recreational experience for hikers, backpackers, snowmobilers and other visitors that come upon signs of the industry.

The report also found that:

• Shale gas development has not degraded water quality at monitoring sites in state forest headwaters, but the relatively short-term sampling may not reflect longer-term effects.

• Low gas prices slowed the pace of new drilling — and its associated impacts — in recent years. Between 2013 and 2016, shale companies built 41 pads for wells and other infrastructure in state forests, down from 224 pads in 2008-12. About 1,425 acres of forest had been converted for shale gas infrastructure through 2012, but only an additional 334 acres were converted between 2013 and 2016.

• Natural gas development “has increased the opportunity for invasive plants to colonize otherwise robust forest habitats.” Of the 238 shale infrastructure pads monitored during the current study period, only 29 were free of invasive plants. At the 127 pads that were surveyed more than once, researchers detected more invasive species at almost all of them during the second survey.

DCNR said its monitoring efforts will continue with a 15-member team and contributions from outside researchers.

“While after more than eight years we can begin to see some trends, natural resource monitoring is a long-term endeavor, and it may take longer to discern other trends in resource change and conditions,” Pennsylvania State Forester Ellen Shultzabarger said in the report