I'm heading upstate in a few minutes, so I'm going to keep this brief. There were three articles of note that caught my attention this morning. First were Kevin Blaum's comments in his "In the Arena" column. He's dead center accurate, and I hope the rest of the politicos in northeastern PA take note.
The other was the "forced pooling" article in the Times-Tribune. I knew about the issue for quite some time, but found this particular quote in the article somewhere between troublesome and outright enraging:
The draft of the bill, which Mr. Everett said was "put together predominantly by folks from the industry" and is "just a starting point" for legislation, defines a standard drilling unit as 640 acres, establishes a notification and hearing procedure for objectors, sets a royalty of 12.5 percent for the gas produced, and protects an unleased landowner from having any surface impacts from the drilling.There was far more coverage on this particular point, so if you missed it, circle back and read it again. Unless the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet, I think I'm reading black & white proof that the natural gas industry has pressured ( read: purchased ) our government "leaders" to the point where they are now writing our legislation.
Follow me on this. Earlier in the article, it stated:
The "Conservation Pooling Act," sponsored by state representatives Marc Gergely, D-35, Allegheny County, and Garth Everett, R-84, Lycoming County, which has not yet been introduced, would establish how gas companies form orderly units of land for developing the gas from the shale - a priority issue for the growing Marcellus Shale industry in the state.So...Mr. Everett is sponsoring legislation written "predominantly" by the natural gas industry!?!? If this guy survives the next election, I'll know where the dumbest people in PA reside...which will be right behind the folks in District 11 if they re-elect Paul Kanjorski, who is in the news again. Cornerstone II, anyone?
And you gotta love this: "Efforts to reach Abound Solar were unsuccessful Saturday evening."
Finally, the cover of TIME caught my attention.
It's time to vote them ALL out.
Unfortunately, it will be a cold day in Hell before I vote for Lou Barletta, the genius behind the Hazleton Creek Project - importing toxic Delaware River dredge to be used as fill in Hazleton. He joined forces with Arlen Specter to bring this about, which was the main reason I voted against Specter in May. But my choice to replace Kanjorski on the Democratic ticket didn't make it, so now we're stuck with a choice between Kanjorski and Barletta for the next two years.
ReplyDeleteSo we have the lesser of two evils to choose from? Such are the limitations of the lobbyist-fueled two party system we currently tolerate. I agree on the dredge issue; it was a bad idea from day 1.
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