Jamison Cocklin

The Ohio Environmental Council (OEC) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) said Tuesday that Ohio is uniquely positioned to meet upcoming federal emission standards, especially if it increases its use of natural gas for electricity generation, which the groups said is currently underutilized.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reversed approval of a Class II injection well it permitted in central Pennsylvania in February, citing stiff opposition and appeals from local residents and public officials during a public comment period.

York County, PA, businessman Tom Wolf, who took a seat at the front of the state’s Democratic primary for governor in January and never looked back, earned his party’s nomination on Tuesday to challenge Republican incumbent Tom Corbett in November.

For the second time in less than two months, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has postponed indefinitely a set of public hearings regarding Hilcorp Energy Co.’s request for a forced pooling order in Western Pennsylvania. Three property owners filed suit earlier this month to stop the company.

Odebrecht Organization has applied for two state permits associated with the multi-billion-dollar ethane cracker it proposed building last year in Wood County, WV, near the heart of growing Marcellus Shale production.

Pennsylvania Republican Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley in a speech before hundreds working in the oil and gas industry said it “defies logic” to say they’re not paying enough taxes, adding that calls for a severance tax come from out-of-touch lawmakers and democratic candidates for governor living in the state’s liberal southeast.

Multiple Appalachian operators have earnestly started to delineate their Utica Shale acreage in West Virginia, delivering on the promises they’ve made in recent months to push the formation’s boundaries south beyond Ohio and drill deeper and longer on the lateral (see Shale Daily, March 26).

Dallas-based private equity firm Panda Power Funds LP said on Thursday it had officially broken ground on one of Pennsylvania’s first power plants to be fired with natural gas from the Marcellus Shale.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) on Thursday took the unusual step of publicly announcing that it had filed extensive comments with FERC imploring the Commission to more closely examine the market impacts that resulted from last winter’s unseasonable cold and high natural gas prices.