Ferlo calls for halt on permits
In a move that might best be described as quixotic, state Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, has introduced a measure that would place an open-ended moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania.
No new permits to drill would be issued under a moratorium, though work would proceed on gas wells where permits have already been approved, Ferlo explained in a teleconference Wednesday afternoon. He envisions a seven-member study commission being put in place that would explore the economic and social impact of drilling, along with its effects on the environment and agriculture.
“There will still be a lot of drilling going on even if there’s a moratorium,” Ferlo said. “This doesn’t attempt to undo the legal rights the industry has.”
He added, however, that natural gas companies snapped up mineral rights and planted their flag in the state before lawmakers and citizens could grasp the full impact the natural gas industry would have and “we need to take a step back and get it right.”
A moratorium on fracking actually making it onto the books seems unlikely, at least in the current political environment. Both houses of the Legislature are controlled by industry-friendly Republicans, and the Democratic caucus is itself divided. Gov. Tom Corbett is also an industry supporter.
Nonetheless, recent polls show a majority of the state’s residents approve of instituting a moratorium, according to Adam Garber, a field director for PennEnvironment, an environmental advocacy group, who joined Ferlo in the teleconference. Garber said a moratorium “is the best chance Pennsylvania has to stop the dangerous expansion of fracking across the state.”
Our neighbors to the north in New York imposed a moratorium on fracking in 2008 that remains in effect. Maryland lawmakers have flirted with a moratorium, but a measure has yet to make it through both houses of the state’s Legislature.
Ferlo’s bill also calls for the seven-member panel that would be appointed under a moratorium to make recommendations on how the state’s laws and regulations would be changed. It would have to be approved by the Senate’s Environmental Resources and Energy Committee before reaching the full Senate.
State Sen. Tim Solobay, D-Canonsburg, a supporter of the natural gas industry, said he hadn’t seen the bill’s language, but that he gets “frustrated” by opponents whose convictions are “not based on any kind of technology or science or any kind of educated reasoning,” and that the technology surrounding natural gas drilling had “improved vastly.”
His sentiments were echoed by Steve Forde, a spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a pro-industry group. He said the natural gas industry was creating jobs, lowering energy costs and enhancing air quality.
“While everyone is entitled to an opinion, the senator’s views are not supported by the facts surrounding safe, tightly regulated shale development,” he said.