Corbett Still Pushing To Preempt Local Drilling Ordinances

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

November 23, 2011 | 11:58 AM

Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania

Corbett's energy executive, Patrick Henderson

A brief note in this morning’s Pipeline morning links adds an interesting dynamic to behind-the-scenes impact fee negotiations.
The Post-Gazette’s Laura Olson covered an energy forum in Hershey yesterday, which Governor Corbett attended. She writes,

“Gov. Tom Corbett declined to take questions yesterday about the discussion to craft a compromise Marcellus Shale measure, thought his energy executive [Patrick Henderson] said after an event in Hershey that they will continue to make their case about creating a uniform system of regulation across the state.“

That means the Corbett Administration hasn’t given up on language “superseding and preempting” all local drilling regulations, despite the fact House lawmakers removed that section from a Republican-sponsored impact fee, before passing it last week.
The amendment was a sign there’s little legislative support for overriding local zoning, but Governor Corbett argues the move would help keep Pennsylvania competitive with Ohio, where more and more drillers are headed.