State Supreme Court May Take Mineral Rights Case

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.

October 11, 2011 | 1:58 PM

Here’s more on that Susquehanna County court case that has the (unlikely) potential to upend leases across Pennsylvania.
From the AP’s Marc Levy:

The Supreme Court must decide whether to hear the appeal.
If the courts decide that mineral rights do not cover the gas from the Marcellus Shale, it could upend some of the leases between property owners and the natural gas industry exploring the Marcellus Shale, some lawyers say.
A lot of leases say a lot of different things, especially over the years, and some are more specific than others, Krock said.
The case stems from a dispute between John E. and Mary Josephine Butler and a man named Charles Powers and his heirs.
The deed for the Butler’s 244 acres in Apolacon Township splits “minerals and petroleum oils” between the parties in a land deal that originated in 1881. Natural gas rights were not mentioned, so all of the gas should still belong to the property, the Butlers contend.