State Impact / Energy. Environment. Economy

StateImpact Pennsylvania’s Susan Phillips spoke to host Tracey Matisak on WHYY’s Radio Times this morning, along with ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten. The discussion touched upon new air pollution regulations the EPA has created for natural gas drilling, and the Department of Interior’s proposed rules that would force companies to disclose the chemicals used in the fracking [...]

Gas drilling has turned some quiet rural areas of Pennsylvania into growing industrial zones. Residents complain of increased truck traffic, bad air, and contaminated well water. Some of those residents have turned to activism. Others have filed lawsuits. But a growing number of Pennsylvania residents living near Marcellus Shale sites are also packing up their [...]

Doctors in heavily drilled areas across Pennsylvania are starting to see more patients who report symptoms they think might be related to gas activity.  But with all the talk about health concerns and Marcellus Shale, what are the links between the two? And where does a doctor turn for answers? For this story, we spoke [...]

The natural gas boom in Pennsylvania promises cheaper, cleaner burning fuel, good jobs, and the possibility that the U.S. could become independent of foreign oil. But what are the costs? The tiny village of Dimock, Pennsylvania, home to about 1500 people, has some of the best producing Marcellus wells in the state. It is now [...]

The Public Utility Commission’s Chairman may be “letting the play come to [it]” when it comes to collecting Pennsylvania’s new impact fee and enforcing local zoning, but Chairman Rob Powelson says the commission will be aggressive about making sure local governments are using their impact fee revenue properly. The new impact fee – now known [...]

Here’s our latest radio story on Pennsylvania’s new impact fee: Earlier this week, Governor Tom Corbett signed a bill overhauling the state’s natural gas drilling regulations into law. The measure imposes a $50,000  fee on every well drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale formation. But as StateImpact Pennsylvania’s Scott Detrow reports, the fee is [...]

On February 3, 2011, President Obama traveled to State College to announce a new energy efficiency program. He wanted to lower commercial energy bills by $40 billion, and improve the country’s energy efficiency by twenty percent. A year is a long time. The fact Obama gave a shout-out to former Penn State President Graham Spanier [...]

There’s plenty of green at the Philadelphia Auto Show this year with new all-electric and hybrid vehicles. For the well-heeled green consumer, there’s a new luxury electric vehicle from Fiskar going for $100,000 dollars. But for those of lesser means, even the much-maligned internal combustion engine is sporting some shades of green.  Kevin Mazzucola is [...]

Yesterday, we reported the Corbett Administration slashed a scientific research program’s budget by nearly 70 percent. Department of Conservation and Natural Resources officials removed Marcellus Shale and climate change-related studies from a list of projects approved for state grants. I spoke to WITF’s Tim Lambert about the StateImpact Pennsylvania article. You can listen to the [...]

A dizzying fall from grace is in store for the Pennsylvania Farm Show’s famed butter sculpture. Through tomorrow, the thousand-pound work of art will be the star attraction of the annual indoor agriculture festival. Thousands of people have snapped pictures of the refrigerated sculpture, which depicts a boy leading his prize-winning calf through a county [...]