Chesapeake Renegotiates New York Land Deals

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.

June 15, 2012 | 10:10 AM

Chesapeake Energy is renegotiating lease deals with more than 4,000 New York landowners. The move is part of a settlement the embattled company reached with the state’s Attorney General, as the AP reports:

Chesapeake Appalachia also agreed to pay $250,000 to cover the state’s investigation costs under the agreement.
Chesapeake had tried to extend the leases in 2009, claiming the state’s de facto moratorium on shale gas development since it started an environmental review in 2008 constituted an uncontrollable event that allows for a lease extension if an “act of god” or unforeseen circumstance prevents drilling.
Schneiderman investigated after receiving complaints from landowners. The leases were signed long before the shale gas boom that began in Pennsylvania in 2007 boosted land prices from as low as $2-$3 an acre to more than $1,500 an acre. Many landowners today are also writing extensive environmental protections into leases.
In the settlement, Chesapeake admits no wrongdoing.