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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2019 - 2020
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | January 7, 2019 10:05 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Donna Oberlander and Rep. Jonathan Fritz |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Reducing Surface Impact from Unconventional Gas Wells |
| In the near future, we plan on reintroducing legislation to maximize the benefits of recent advances in natural gas drilling technology and practices. With the ability of the natural gas industry to now drill longer lateral well bores, surface impacts from drilling have been greatly reduced. This advancement means less well pads, less access roads, less truck traffic, less pipelines, and less surface disturbance altogether. It is a positive for landowners, the environment, neighbors, and our local governments. This legislation will provide for a process and accounting mechanism to allow well bores to cross multiple units provided the operator has the right to drill wells on the units via leases with all landowners/members of the units. The operator is then required to reasonably and proportionately allocate the production across the various members of the units. The legislation does not impair any current contracts or leases, does not allow for any production from unleased land, and would not apply in cases where this practice would be contractually prohibited. By enacting this legislation, we will be able to realize all the previously mentioned benefits as well as increase the tax revenue coming to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania while at the same time reducing the workload on the Department of Environmental Protection and other industry regulators. |
Introduced as HB247