Garden State Blackmail?

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

July 15, 2011 | 4:52 PM

Environmentalists say New Jersey officials are using blackmail to push for an expansion of natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. At a Delaware River Basin Commission Meeting this week, New Jersey’s representative at the meeting, John Plonski, said the state may not pay its share of funding to the Commission unless the agency adopts its’ proposed gas drilling regulations by September.
The DRBC received thousands of public comments on the proposals. Unlike other parts of Pennsylvania, gas drilling in the Delaware River watershed is on hold until the Commission agrees on new regulations. Environmentalists say the drinking water for 16 million people are at stake, and want the Commission to do a comprehensive environmental impact statement before deciding on the regulations.
But the Commission is getting pressure from Pennsylvania to lift the moratorium. No drilling would occur in New Jersey itself, because it does not sit on top of the Marcellus Shale gas reserves. But that didn’t stop the New Jersey legislature from banning fracking in the state.