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Monthly Archives: March 2015

Supreme Court appears divided over EPA limits on mercury emissions from power plants

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the Supreme Court’s conservative justices cast doubt Wednesday on the Obama Administration’s regulations to reduce power plant emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.

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Maryland lawmakers pass fracking moratorium

Maryland’s House of Delegates passed a bill that would put a three-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in the state.

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Budget Hearings Continue with Dueling Numbers, Plans, Proposals

The House Appropriations Committee is finishing its budget hearings, and back in Harrisburg next week, while the Senate continues its annual agency examinations. The Wolf Administration, in interviews and throughout the hearings continued to insist that the proposed budget is a comprehensive plan that has to be evaluated as a whole, and not as individual pieces. Budget Secretary Randy Albright told the Senate that the problems and solutions are all interconnected, but that the targeting proposed by Governor Wolf will make the state more competitive.

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US Senate Committee Hears from States on Clean Power Plan

Senate Republicans on the Environment and Public Works committee used a Wednesday hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) landmark climate rule to highlight the objections from states that oppose the rule.

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Ohio Governor Kasich Calls for Severance Tax Hike

Last month, Ohio Governor John Kasich proposed to add additional revenue from the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays of approximately $325 million in his budget. He proposed a variety of tax rates on oil and gas products from horizontal wells. The tax on oil would be 6.5% of the value of oil, and the tax on gas entering the distribution system without further processing would also be 6.5%. Similarly, condensate collected at a point other than the wellhead would be taxed at 6.5% of its value.

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Revised Rulemaking Proposal for Environmental Protection Performance Standards at Oil and Gas Well Sites

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) today announced the latest draft revisions of the Environmental Protection Performance Standards at Oil and Gas Well Sites, continuing DEP’s record of modernizing and strengthening the environmental controls employed by this industry to assure the protection of public safety.

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Economic Development, Energy Bond Programs Proposed

The budget’s $675 million in economic development-related borrowing is contingent on the Governor getting passage of his severance tax proposal. Some $55 million of that tax revenue would be used annually to pay the borrowing costs.

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Budget Hearings Begin in House

This week the House Appropriations Committee began hearings with state agencies on the Governor’s Budget and the operations of those agencies. The week started off on a somewhat bright note for all with the Independent Fiscal Office stating that the structural budget appears now to be in the $1.5 billion range, much below the $2.3 billion anticipated early this year. Wolf’s Chief of Staff Katie McGinty commented this week that too much emphasis on the component parts takes away the “focus on the bigger picture.”

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Wolf Makes “Historic” Budget Proposal

Within a half hour after Governor Wolf’s first budget address, ERG Partners realized that virtually every Administration spokesperson and every member of the House and Senate were in agreement. The proposal outlined by the governor was “historic, and complicated”

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