Range Resources CEO Says States Should Regulate Drilling, Not the Feds

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.

September 7, 2011 | 11:36 AM

Range Resources CEO John Pinkerton says state governments do a better job at regulating the industry. Range has recently filed a legal challenge to a local zoning ordinance passed in Washington County that would restrict drilling. Pinkerton says he wants consistency statewide. But when asked whether the federal government could provide consistency nationwide, he said that would be the ideal but the feds aren’t up to the task.
“The problem is our federal government doesn’t have the money, the people or the experience to do it.”
But it’s not just the Environmental Protection Agency that has stepped into the gas drilling fray. The Securities and Exchange Commission has subpoenaed gas drillers after reports suggested the companies are inflating the shale gas potential. Pinkerton says Range is cooperating fully with the S.E.C. and has nothing to hide.