Shale panel offers blueprint for future
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HARRISBURG -- From impact fees to pooling gas rights, boosting fines to rewarding natural gas use, the governor's Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission stuffed dozens of wide-ranging suggestions into its report Friday.
Those 96 recommendations are aimed at encouraging gas companies to invest in Pennsylvania, protecting environmental resources and helping local governments manage the industry that is remaking their communities.
• Enact a drilling impact fee that offsets "uncompensated" costs to local governments.
• Double civil penalties for violations and increase bonding fees held in case a well is abandoned.
• Establish construction standards for private water wells and increase the distance for which a driller is presumed liable for contamination.
• Require the state Public Utility Commission to oversee gathering lines and increase safety standards for pipelines in low-density areas.
• Update state law to make the Marcellus Shale eligible for "pooling." That process allows for mineral resources at a certain depth to be added against the owner's wishes into a larger drilling unit.
They ranged from specific updates -- setting the number of feet between wellpads and streams, and doubling the fines for companies that break the rules -- to general directions for legislators to review the business climate, analyze spill-containment methods and create a permanent advisory panel.
The report's directions were equally broad on the closely watched issue of an impact fee, urging simply that any fee be directed toward helping local governments with "uncompensated" costs from drilling activity.
And on another controversial issue, the panel gave limited instructions for "modernizing" state law to allow drillers to access gas within Marcellus Shale even against a landowner's wishes. That process, known as pooling, currently is allowed under certain conditions to extract gas more efficiently, but draws fiery opposition from those who see it as impinging on property rights.
First Published July 23, 2011 12:00 am
