Lawmakers

Some lawmakers returned from recess to the Pennsylvania Capitol on Monday as the state remains without a revenue package to balance a nearly $32 billion budget that Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf let pass into law last week without his signature for the third year in a row.

Eighteen Democratic state legislators in Colorado earlier this month sent a letter to the state’s top public health and environmental scientist, questioning a report released in February that concluded there are few health risks for people living near oil and natural gas drilling sites.

As state budget hearings kicked-off on Tuesday, calls to increase the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) general fund appropriations were again voiced, this time by the agency’s Citizens Advisory Council.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said Republican lawmakers have yet to decide which regulations from the Obama administration they want to repeal first, but he disclosed that he expected “swift action” on rules governing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said Republican lawmakers have yet to decide which regulations from the Obama administration they want to repeal first, but he disclosed that he expected “swift action” on rules governing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.

A coalition of lawmakers in the House of Representatives asked President Obama Wednesday to permanently remove the Atlantic and Arctic oceans from future offshore oil and gas leasing.

As Pennsylvania’s House and Senate leaders continued to negotiate over ways to fund a $31.5 billion state budget on Tuesday, the severance tax on natural gas production proposed earlier this year by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf was not among the options being discussed.

A sweeping overhaul of environmental regulations for Pennsylvania’s oil and natural gas industry hit another roadblock on Wednesday, when the state House Environmental and Energy Resources Committee approved legislation to scrap parts of the package that would apply to conventional wells.

The Pennsylvania House and Senate energy committees this week voted against the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) overhaul of regulations for the oil and natural gas industries.