4 Things To Watch For At The Marcellus Shale Coalition’s Philadelphia Conference

Scott Detrow / StateIm­pact Pennsylvania

A Tioga County drilling rig.

If you’re any­one who has any­thing to do with drilling for nat­ural gas in Pennsylvania’s Mar­cel­lus Shale, then you’ll likely be at the Philadel­phia Con­ven­tion Cen­ter on Tues­day and Wednesday.

The drilling industry’s top trade group, the Mar­cel­lus Shale Coali­tion, is host­ing “Shale Gas Insight,” a two-day con­fer­ence “that will offer abun­dant oppor­tu­ni­ties for indus­try stake­hold­ers to gain insight into tech­niques to advance best prac­tices and shape pub­lic pol­icy,” accord­ing to its website.

To put that another way: top energy exec­u­tives will spend two days min­gling with state and fed­eral offi­cials, dis­cussing what hap­pens next, when it comes to devel­op­ing gas drilling, and author­ing the laws that reg­u­late it.

The Mar­cel­lus Shale Coali­tion says more than 1,500 peo­ple will attend the con­fer­ence, which will fea­ture pre­sen­ta­tions from more than 70 peo­ple. Pan­els will dis­cuss fed­eral reg­u­la­tion – or lack thereof – of drilling, envi­ron­men­tal safety issues, and even strate­gies energy com­pa­nies can use when deal­ing with the media. You can view a full sched­ule of events here.

At the same time, hun­dreds – if not thou­sands – of drilling oppo­nents will gather out­side the con­ven­tion cen­ter to protest hydraulic fracturing.

There’s a lot going on, and StateIm­pact will pro­vide full cov­er­age, on the web and on the radio. To bring you up to speed, here are four things to look for this week.

 Who Will Crash The Party?

The Shale Gas Insight con­ven­tion has spawned a full cal­en­dar of counter-programming, dubbed “Shale Gas Out­rage.” A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal groups has joined forces in the effort, which will fea­ture an anti-drilling march and rally on Wednes­day, and a “Free­dom from Frack­ing” con­fer­ence on Thurs­day. Speak­ers include Gasland direc­tor Josh Fox and sev­eral local lawmakers.

We know what to expect from these protests. The big wild card, though, is how many “frac­tivists” will infil­trate the Shale Gas Insight con­fer­ence, and try to dis­rupt speeches. The Mar­cel­lus Shale Coali­tion is brac­ing for inter­rup­tions: in an email sent out to con­fer­ence par­tic­i­pants last week, the group pro­vided point­ers on how to han­dle heck­ling:  “If you are pre­sent­ing and a con­fer­ence attendee inter­rupts your com­ments, a ses­sion mon­i­tor will approach the indi­vid­ual and ask for the dis­rup­tion to cease.  If he/she does not com­ply, secu­rity will be sum­moned.  It is best for pre­sen­ters to step back from the micro­phone dur­ing the dis­rup­tion and secu­rity response. …If a per­son close to you becomes dis­rup­tive dur­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion, do not per­son­ally inter­vene.  If secu­rity is not in the imme­di­ate vicin­ity they will be close by — find a secu­rity mem­ber and request their assistance.”

What Will Cor­bett Say?

It’s been 46 days since the panel Gov­er­nor Cor­bett charged with set­ting his Mar­cel­lus Shale poli­cies issued its 96 rec­om­men­da­tions. Since then, the Repub­li­can has stayed rel­a­tively mum on the issue, issu­ing vague state­ments that don’t shed much light on which pro­pos­als he backs, and which ones he’ll reject. The gov­er­nor will deliver a speech to the con­fer­ence at 12:30 on Thurs­day. Will he use the occa­sion to spell out his para­me­ters for a drilling impact fee, or voice sup­port for other com­mis­sion proposals?

Wel­come Back, Tom and Ed

Speak­ing of gov­er­nors… two of Corbett’s recent pre­de­ces­sors, Repub­li­can Tom Ridge and Demo­c­rat Ed Ren­dell, will also address the con­fer­ence. Ridge, of course, spent a year as the Mar­cel­lus Shale Coalition’s top Har­ris­burg lob­by­ist, and even appeared on the Col­bert Report to defend drilling. He and the MSC parted ways this sum­mer, but Ridge remains a vocal sup­porter of nat­ural gas drilling. Given that track record, Ridge’s speech likely won’t offer any surprises.

Getty Images

For­mer Gov­er­nor Ed Ren­dell at a June wedding

Gov­er­nor Ren­dell, how­ever, is always a wild card. The con­fer­ence speech will be his most high-profile return to Penn­syl­va­nia pol­icy issues in the nine months since he’s left office, and turned his focus to, well, pretty much every­thing under the sun. Most drilling oppo­nents have focused their atten­tion on Cor­bett — specif­i­cally the cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions he received from drilling com­pa­nies, and his oppo­si­tion to a nat­ural gas sev­er­ance tax. The “frac­tivists” tend to for­get that aside from sup­port for a gas levy, Ren­dell was just as big of a gas booster as his suc­ces­sor. The Demo­c­rat leased nearly 140,000 acres of state for­est land for drilling, opposed calls for a frack­ing mora­to­rium, and, in 2009, took the option for a sev­er­ance tax off the table dur­ing stalled nego­ti­a­tions over a state bud­get. Will Ren­dell praise drilling’s eco­nomic impact? Or call for tighter reg­u­la­tions and an impact fee or sev­er­ance tax?

How’s That Whole “Texas of Nat­ural Gas Drilling” Thing Going?

Philadelphia’s Con­ven­tion Cen­ter will be jam-packed this week with energy exec­u­tives and drilling stake­hold­ers. Is this a sign that Penn­syl­va­nia really is becom­ing, as Gov­er­nor Cor­bett has hoped for, “the Texas of nat­ural gas drilling?” As last week’s Energy Infor­ma­tion Agency chart illus­trates, Penn­syl­va­nia really is becom­ing a key­stone – for lack of a bet­ter term – of north­east­ern energy pro­duc­tion. What needs to hap­pen in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor for that trend to con­tinue? And is the drilling indus­try on-board with the tighter reg­u­la­tions envi­ron­men­tal activists are call­ing for? Or will drillers con­tinue to push back against pro­pos­als like impact fees, fed­eral frack­ing dis­clo­sure laws, and stricter stan­dards? We’ll let you know if a con­sen­sus emerges on any of these fronts.