Jim Willis
Editor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN)

John Quigley, DEP Secretary, plans to attack the Marcellus industry by passing more PA drilling regulations, with no end in sight to the economic attack.

You know what happens when you elect Big Government liberals to important positions, like governor? You get high taxes and onerous regulations across all industries but particularly on the drilling industry.

Welcome to Pennsylvania and the floundering administration of Gov. Tom Wolf and his PennFuture sidekicks who pretty much run the whole show for Wolf including the PennFuture Sec. of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley. PennFuture is an anti-drilling environmental group that Quigley used to work for prior to being appointed by Wolf to run the PA DEP, the agency in charge of drilling (how’s that for ironic?).

John Quigley, Secretary of PA DEP

On a conference call yesterday Quigley said, of the current round of new drilling rules and regulations, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. He plans to attack the Marcellus industry with even more onerous rules and regulations in the coming months and years of a (hopefully) one-term Wolf administration. Quigley is making his onerous list and checking it twice; gonna find out who’s naughty and naughtier (there is no nice in fossil fuels, ya know).

The Wolf administration, including Quigley, is doing its best to destroy the Marcellus Shale industry:

Pennsylvania environmental regulators are making a list of items they want to see in yet another major revision to the state’s oil and gas rules, just as they near the end of a contentious rule-drafting process that will have taken half a decade when it is finished next year.

In a conference call to announce the final package of rules for above-ground oil and gas activities on Aug. 12, Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley cast his comments repeatedly toward the future.

“This is not the end of the process,” he said. “There is more study needed on additional measures, and there will be more rule-making in a separate process, to ensure responsible drilling and protection of communities, public health and the environment.”

Regulators gave few firm details about what the coming raft of rules might hold, but they signaled some areas of focus. Mr. Quigley said the agency will release additional information about the potential scope of the next regulatory package, probably between October and December.

Quigley is being cagey about where he intends to royally screw the Marcellus industry next, but there are signs he plans onerous new regulations around:

1. Noise coming from well pads. They tried this already but withdrew after a firestorm of protest from the industry. Look for Quigley to resurrect this in the future.

2. Quigley said he is, in particular, looking at new regulations around the nebulous concept of “public health” and protecting it. You can do a lot of damage under the vague umbrella of so-called “public health” claiming “it” is being “impacted” by drilling. Channeling the best lines from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Quigley said the DEP “will be driven by science and data” when it comes to proposing new regulations that “protect” public health. You see where that lie got NY a political ban on fracking. Is that what Quigley envisions for PA?

3. Quigley is a global warming Kool Aid drinker and so, at the prompting of the radical Philadelphia Clean Air Council, he’s looking to further reduce methane leaks. That is, create new, unrealistic rules for the Marcellus industry to follow that would be so expensive it will put them out of business; all in an effort to ensure not one molecule of methane “escapes” into the atmosphere, like a fugitive on the run from a maximum security prison. It’s asinine but it’s that kind of philosophy that drives fractivists.

Click here to read the full article recounting the coming regulatory overreach by PennFuture Sec. Quigley. Don’t say we didn’t warn you about Wolf because we did.

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