Pipeline Company Hit With Ethics Fine

Scott Detrow

Recent Stories

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.

September 30, 2011 | 11:50 AM

Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania

A pipeline clearing in Tioga County

An energy company building a pipeline in northeast Pennsylvania has been hit with a nearly $2,000 fine, for failing to file a quarterly lobbying report.
The Times-Tribune has more:

The state Ethics Commission levied the penalty of $1,995 against Laser Northeast Gathering Co. LLC for being nearly two months late in filing the report covering the fourth quarter of 2010. The commission approved a consent agreement with the firm earlier this week. Laser has already made payment.
The commission, which enforces the lobbyist disclosure act, considers Laser’s failure to file the report “negligent in nature.”

Laser is currently building a 30-mile pipeline in Susquehanna County. The company had initially planned on filing as a public utility, but pulled that application earlier this month. If the request had been granted by the Public Utility Commission, Laser would have been able to condemn private property to build its $55 million project. It also would have been subject to stricter safety standards.