One Month Later, Corbett Stays Vague On Marcellus Report’s Recommendations

Scott Detrow / StateIm­pact Pennsylvania

Gov­er­nor Cor­bett talks to reporters at the Eliz­a­beth­town Fair

It’s been a month and a day since Gov­er­nor Tom Corbett’s Mar­cel­lus Shale Advi­sory Com­mis­sion issued its 137-page report.

The Repub­li­can charged the panel with set­ting his agenda, when it comes to reg­u­lat­ing and expand­ing Pennsylvania’s boom­ing nat­ural gas indus­try. But in late August, Cor­bett is stay­ing vague on which of the commission’s 96 rec­om­men­da­tions he’ll stick with, and which he’ll cast aside.

“We’re still review­ing it in detail,” he said at the Eliz­a­beth­town Fair, in rural Lan­caster County. “We’re look­ing at the entire report, not just any one aspect. Break­ing it down, as to what can we do with­out leg­is­la­tion? What may require reg­u­la­tion. What’s the time frame in that.”

The com­ments mir­rored what Cor­bett told reporters on July 28: “I’m still read­ing it,” he said at the time. “I’m look­ing to see that which I agree with and there’s maybe one or two things I don’t agree with, and things I don’t know if I agree with or not that I have to get some more infor­ma­tion on. But I’m also look­ing at that which we can do as the exec­u­tive branch and imple­ment quickly, or is there some­thing short-term medium-term or long term, but also that which we can give to the Legislature.”

Corbett’s delayed response on the report could be viewed as fur­ther proof the panel was noth­ing more than a stalling tac­tic – a charge Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Pro Tem Joe Scar­nati, a Repub­li­can, levied after Cor­bett halted the push for an impact fee on gas drillers in its tracks this sum­mer, by threat­en­ing to veto any bill that reached his desk before the com­mis­sion issued its rec­om­men­da­tions. (Scar­nati is a major pro­po­nent of a low-level fee against drillers.) Alter­na­tively, the lag could be seen as the lat­est exam­ple of the delib­er­a­tive, unhur­ried approach the career pros­e­cu­tor has taken to gov­ern­ing. This is, after all, the gov­er­nor who all but dis­ap­peared between his Jan­u­ary 18th inau­gu­ra­tion and March 8th bud­get address, offer­ing lit­tle, if any, hints about his spend­ing plan’s details until the day before his speech to lawmakers.

Scott Detrow / StateIm­pact Pennsylvania

Cor­bett tours the Eliz­a­beth­town Fair, in Lan­caster County

At the fair, Cor­bett ducked a ques­tion on whether he’ll sup­port a fee, now that his panel has endorsed the idea. “We’re tak­ing a look at how they mea­sure the impact. How much the impact fee would be,” he said. Cor­bett also side­stepped a query on whether or not he sup­ports Depart­ment of Com­mu­nity and Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Sec­re­tary Alan Walker’s recent call for expanded drilling on state for­est land. “Right now we’re look­ing at the whole Mar­cel­lus – the report,” he said. “That’s not part of the report.” (Two rec­om­men­da­tions did address drilling in forests, though nei­ther explic­itly called for expanded leas­ing. One urged envi­ron­men­tal cau­tion, if addi­tional for­est land is auc­tioned off for drilling. The sec­ond rec­om­men­da­tion prod­ded law­mak­ers to reex­am­ine where to spend money in Pennsylvania’s bur­geon­ing Oil and Gas Lease Fund.)

The gov­er­nor was direct on one issue: whether the commission’s rec­om­men­da­tion to reassess pool­ing laws had swayed his oppo­si­tion to the pro­posal to, under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, allow drillers to extract gas from under­neath the prop­erty of unwill­ing landown­ers. Would Cor­bett sup­port a pool­ing bill? “No,” he said.

So what hap­pens next? In July, Cor­bett Admin­is­tra­tion staffers sug­gested the gov­er­nor would hold a for­mal press con­fer­ence in August or Sep­tem­ber, spelling out his next steps on gas pol­icy. Cor­bett dis­puted the plan Mon­day night. “I don’t know that we need to do a full press con­fer­ence. …When we start intro­duc­ing pieces [new reg­u­la­tions or bill pro­pos­als] you’ll be able to fig­ure it out,” he said. “Some of it we might be able to announce that we’re going to do this through reg­u­la­tion, or just through pol­icy.” On whether or not Cor­bett expects the Gen­eral Assem­bly to send him an impact fee by year’s end, Cor­bett said, “I think that you’ll see some­thing – some leg­is­la­tion about Mar­cel­lus – in the fall.”