1,400 intervenors want to join PennEast Pipeline process

By Thursday evening’s deadline, more than 1,400 individuals, governmental bodies and other entities filed as intervenors to PennEast Pipeline’s proposed 114-mile natural gas pipeline.
Christina Tatu writes in The Morning Call:
The status is important for those who oppose the project because it makes them a party to the proceedings and allows them to appeal any decisions made by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the independent agency responsible for approving natural gas pipelines.
Among the intervenors are 22 of the 29 municipalities along the pipeline route, which extends from Wilkes-Barre to Mercer County, N.J., cutting through Northampton County along the way.
The majority of intervening municipalities oppose the project, though not all of them have taken a stance.
In their interventions, the Northampton municipalities, except for Williams, called the project a threat to the Lehigh Valley’s environmental resources.

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Pa Supreme Court to hear more arguments on Act 13

Natural gas drilling workers at site in Bradford County, Pa.- AP Photo
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments related to its December, 2013 decision regarding the state’s comprehensive update to its oil and gas law, known as Act 13.

Susan Phillips writes in StateImpact:

In an order published this week, the court determined that it would take up several unresolved issues, but it would not revisit its interpretation of article 1, section 27 of the state constitution, also known as the Environmental Rights Amendment.

In the 2013 landmark decision, a plurality of justices ruled that it would be unconstitutional for the state to preempt local zoning decisions, as outlined in the new oil and gas law approved by the legislature and signed by then Governor Tom Corbett back in February, 2012.
Three justices, including Chief Justice Ron Castille, struck down the provision based on what was at the time, the state’s little known Environmental Rights Amendment, which guarantees ”clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. ”
The decision was both surprising and controversial, celebrated by environmentalists, and derided by industry attorneys.
Environmentalists and municipalities had also challenged other aspects of Act 13, including what became known as the “doctor gag rule,” eminent domain for gas storage facilities, and the exclusion from notification of hazardous spills for owners and residents relying on private water sources.
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Life goes from bad to worse for Pa’s Attorney General

Pennsylvania’s embattled Attorney General Kathleen Kane
For the first time since Kathleen Kane’s legal troubles began in May 2014, top lawyers in the attorney general’s office appear to be in open revolt against their embattled boss, further exposing internal turmoil in Pennsylvania’s top law enforcement agency.
The Morning Call‘s Steve Esack reports:

On Friday, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, a Democrat like Kane, said a high-ranking staffer in Kane’s office recently sought his help in ousting her.

The staffer, Morganelli said, asked him to use a rare court procedure only a county district attorney or the attorney general can employ to remove an unfit public official from office. Morganelli said he would not tap the legal remedy  quo warranto even though he referred to Kane’s office as “a mess.”
“I found it alarming that high-ranking OAG people thought things were so bad that they openly were looking to have a coup regarding their boss,” he said in a statement. “Public confidence in the OAG as well as in our judges and courts is being eroded. I never imagined it could get so bad.”
It’s so bad that even the agency’s top lawyers don’t think Kane can do the job anymore, after the Supreme Court suspended her law license Oct. 22 over perjury charges against her.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Friday that the lawyers told Kane in a letter dated Oct. 21 they disagreed with her assertion she can remain in charge because 98 percent of her duties are managerial and ministerial. State law says the attorney general must be a licensed lawyer.
READ: Deputys attorney general say emails sent to Attorney General's Office not public

READ: Deputys attorney general say emails sent to Attorney General’s Office not public
The letter was signed by Kane’s first deputy, Bruce Beemer, and executive deputies James A. Donahue III, head of the public protection unit; Robert A. Mulle, chief of the civil division; and Lawrence Cherba, director of the criminal division.
In a third punch Friday, Kane’s spokesman Chuck Ardo released an internal office memo written by the four. Their memo says Kane was wrong to claim that anyone who sends an email to the agency has no right to privacy. The memo came after Kane defended her decision to release the private emails of a judge with whom she has feuded.
“Any email sent to an email account in the Office of Attorney General, whether from a private or public email account, is not considered a private communication once it is captured by an OAG server,” Kane said in a statement Thursday.
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Miles of New Jersey highways, few electric cars on them

Nearly 2,500 electric cars are registered in New Jersey — far fewer than the number on the road in some neighboring states, where more aggressive incentives are in place to encourage their purchase.
Tom Johnson reports today in NJ Spotlight:
But even those states with double the number of electric vehicles on the road — like Massachusetts and Maryland — need to significantly ramp up efforts to promote greater acceptance of the cars, according to a new report.
Those efforts include incentive programs for auto dealerships and consumers, public policies leading to widespread availability of consumer-friendly charging stations, and leading by example by using such vehicles in municipal and statewide fleets.
Clean energy advocates tout electric vehicles as an important tool in reducing harmful air pollution and curbing greenhouse-gas emissions. About 31,000 electric cars are on the road in 11 Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states as of this past August.
But that number pales in comparison with the goal set by six of those states who hope to see 1.7 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025 under a regional program they have established to jointly promote and collaborate on policies to encourage their use. The Christie administration opted not to participate in the multi-state program in 2013.
Nationwide, about 1 percent of vehicles sold are electric cars.
The report, “Charging Up,’’ notes some auto dealers, state government agencies, and electric utilities are taking steps to accelerate adoption of electric vehicles, but more can be done.
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How has Pa managed to spend $27B without a budget?


Pennsylvania may well be 120 days into Budget Impasse 2015, but
the state has nonetheless spent $27 billion since July, a newspaper
has reported.

The Patriot-News‘s John L. Micek today writes:

The expenditures total nearly a full fiscal year’s worth of spending, The Tribune-Review’s Brad Bumsted reports this morning. The money comes from a mix of state and federal sources, as well as Pennsylvania Lottery winnings and tax revenue from casinos, the newspaper reported.
“It floored me,” freshman Rep. Chris Dush, R-Jefferson, who pried the information loose via a Right-to-Know request with the state Treasury Department, told Bumsted.
Dush told Bumsted he wants to know how the money was spent. Namely, whether it went to mandatory or discretionary programs and how much of it was a pass-through from federal sources.
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NYC City Council, gas lobby square off over biofuel

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration tacitly endorsed two bills to increase the use of biofuel citywide, but a Monday hearing on them grew heated nonetheless when oil lobby representatives showed up to challenge them.

David Giambusso reports for Politico New York:

Both Intros 642 and 880 would expand the use of biofuel — a plant-based fuel that can be mixed with petroleum-based products and is responsible for lower greenhouse gas emissions — in home heating oil and city school buses respectively.

Much of the city’s vehicle fleet already burns a 5-percent biofuel blend, and buildings that use heating oil are required to use 2 percent biofuel, after initiatives put forth under former mayor Michael Bloomberg. City officials estimated those two measures have already reduced greenhouse gas emissions in New York — the equivalent of taking 30,000 cars off the road.
The two bills heard Monday before the City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee would mandate that all buildings still heated by oil must use at least 5 percent biofuel by 2016 and 20 percent biofuel by 2030, and that the city’s school buses use ultra low-sulfur diesel with at least 5 percent biodiesel.
The sparks flew when Karen Moreau, head of the New York State Petroleum Council, testified that the biofuel bills would pose a costly alternative to traditional petroleum-based products and would expose consumers to higher fuel prices and more expensive food.
“In imposing mandates, particularly in the energy sector, the government is essentially picking the winners and losers in fuel options,” she said.

Read the full story here 
 
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