Roughly 70 percent of Pennsylvania sits atop the Marcellus Shale formation with an estimated 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas worth about $500 billion. The oil and gas industry wants to earn millions of dollars more by extracting the natural gas by the quickest method possible. Thousands of gallons of local-source freshwater are needed in the process. The contaminated wastewater then needs to be discarded and currently there are no rules on how that should be done.

Support a tax on natural gas drilling!

Tell Gov. Rendell and your legislators that opening Pennsylvania's wilderness to more natural gas exploration is unacceptable.
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In the budget deal agreed upon by Senate Leaders and the Governor last Friday, the state is mandated to lease approximately 100,000 acres of our most pristine forests for natural gas exploration.

Make no mistake, natural gas exploration will wreck these areas for hiking, fishing, hunting and the other outdoor activities. Drilling operatios will clearcut wide swaths through the forest and huge well pads, and they won't replace the trees when they are done.

Energy doesn't have to mean pollution

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Currently, Pennsylvania makes electricity suppliers buy some of their power from renewable sources. The amount is very small, but we have a chance to increase it.

Right now, House Bill 80 is a bill that would commit our state to providing almost a fifth of its power from truly renewable sources by 2024 as well as more than double our commitment to solar power in the same time frame.

This would be a very exciting development, one that closely mirrors the progress envisioned in Federal Climate Legislation, except one problem: the current draft of the legislation could wipe out all that progress by giving the coal industry a good reason to build a brand new coal power plant.

The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) is considering an application to permit one million gallons of water withdrawal per day from the Delaware River. This water would be used to force natural gas out of wells very deep in the ground.

Over half of the water would have to be disposed of afterward, but these millions of gallons of water will be so polluted that there’s no good way to safely treat the water and re-release it back into the environment.

Additionally, transportation of this water will require approximately 200 diesel truck trips per day, further adding to the particulate and CO2 pollution in northern Pennsylvania.

On July 1, 2009 the Allegheny County Board of Health voted 8 to 1 to indefinitely postpone updating the guidelines they use to issue permits for industry to release toxics (Air Toxics Guidelines). The current guidelines are over 20 years old and are based on science that is probably 30 years old. The Board passed the buck and said they would wait until the State of Pennsylvania develops new regulations.

The Health Department took this action even though our air is unhealthy. We have received four failing report cards on our air quality: