Monthly Archives: March 2013

Members of the General Assembly are back in their home districts for spring break, slated to return to Harrisburg the week of April 8. All of the large agenda items are still on the table, but are beginning to take shape.

Last week the Corbett administration announced that Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Krancer will step down on April 15 to return home to Montgomery County to rejoin his former law firm, Blank Rome LLP.

During a press conference held on Tuesday in Williamsport, Pa., Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware) and State Senator Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming) announced two bills aimed at fostering the extension and expansion of natural gas distribution systems to unserved and underserved residential, commercial, and industrial sites.

On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing on the United States’ federal financial support for the development and production of fuels and energy technologies.

This week will see the end of scheduled House and Senate Appropriations Committee budget hearings for state agencies and the 2013-2014 state budget. After hearing testimony from Departmental executives about needs, services, and the impacts of Governor’s Corbett’s proposed budget, legislative leaders will then begin the real process of working out a deal to pass a Constitutionally mandated balanced budget by the June 30 deadline.

Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale natural-gas production exceeded 2 trillion cubic feet in 2012, twice the level of 2011, according to data collected by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

President Obama and Congress are still trapped in the web they wove  for themselves in 2011 while trying to arrive at a solution to the national debt and deficit explosion.  Republicans and Democrats failed again this week to reach agreement on an alternative to the automatic holds on funding established in that 2011 deal. The full brunt of the $85 billion belt tightening, known in Washington as “sequestration,” will take effect over seven months so it is not clear if there will be an immediate disruption to public services.  The overall cuts scheduled for ten years will be nearly $1 trillion. In most cases, these cuts are actually reductions in planned increases in spending.