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Rendell chides, gas industry chortles: scenes from Rendell's attempted public shaming of Marcellus Shale drillers
There's a lot to be said for sitting in the back of a room. That's where this reporter was stationed Wednesday night, as former Governor Ed Rendell gave addressed the Shale Impact 2011 conference currently being held at the Philadelphia Convention Center - and it turned out to be a perfect place to observe the reaction of several hundred gas industry folks to Rendell's chiding the industry for having "screwed up so bad there are protesters anywhere anybody associated with this goes."
Rendell chides, gas industry chortles: scenes from Rendell's attempted public shaming of Marcellus Shale drillers
There's a lot to be said for sitting in the back of a room.
That's where this reporter was stationed Wednesday night, as former Governor Ed Rendell gave addressed the Shale Impact 2011 conference currently being held at the Philadelphia Convention Center — and it turned out to be a perfect place to observe the reaction of several hundred gas industry folks to Rendell's chiding the industry for having "screwed up so bad there are protesters anywhere anybody associated with this goes."
Chief among the gas industry "screw-ups" cited by Rendell were its failure to offer to pay a tax on gas production (which it does in every other state with shale gas), and its poor environmental record.
This wasn't the first time the (now-former) governor told the industry it would be in its own best interest to pay a severance tax: he did so several years ago during a gas industry conference in Houston.
But Wednesday's remarks went much, much farther than before. While emphasizing his own support of natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania, the governor had harsh words for the industry, accusing it of being "willing, it appears to me, to ride this out as long as possible without a legitimate, fair tax."
"It's a mistake. It's one of the things turning the tide of public opinion against you."
The governor seemed to give a nod to anti-drilling protesters, emphasizing (to an audience that seemed less than receptive to the message) that protesters were not "militants" and that "They're raising serious and legitimate issues. They express the fears of not just a few militants but the fears of a lot of good hard-working Pennsylvanians about what's going to happen to their land, about what's going to happen to their water supplies, and bout what's going to happen to their waterways."
Perhaps even more significantly, the Governor delivered a laundry list of accusations of poor environmental practices, citing everything from figures of spills and other accidents — a report by the Pennsylvania Land Trust finding more than 16,000 violations by Marcellus Shale companies; a report by the AP that found that nearly a fifth of fracking wastewater had gone unaccounted for and, therefore, Rendell said, "the logical assumption is that the waste was dumped into Pennsylvania waterways."; a finding by public utility companies that treatment plants downstream from fracking wastewater facilities have been struggling to keep cacinogenic contaminants below legal limits; and other seemingly-damning findings that Marcellus Shale gas companies have been reckless when it comes to the environment and public health. I've transcribed a hefty chunk of the speech below.
Rendell finished his speech to applause — but severely muted applause. As soon as he finished, the large room was taken over by winking, nudging, and an undercurrent of anger.
"That's why they call him Fast Eddie," I heard one gas exec explain to another.
On the escalator down, another gas exec described the speech to a colleague who hadn't heard it: "Oh, he said how we're taking away kindergarten from little kids," was the gist of it. The colleague rolled her eyes.
Afterward, I ran into a scientist acquaintance at the conference reception, who was in a mild state of shock at how vehemently everyone around us had hated that speech. "It seemed very middle-of-the-road to me," he said. "He told them, 'Yes, we want you here.'"
Rendell's goal was clearly to shame the industry into making voluntary changes. Judging from the crowd's reaction, he's a long way from doing that.
Exceprt from Rendell's speech:
The industry continues to screw up — you've screwed up so badly there's a movie that got an Academy Award nomination called "Gasland," ... screwed up so bad that there are protesters anywhere anybody associated with this goes. And the protesters grow stronger and deeper in number every day. The protesters used to be in the northern tier, now they're in Southeastern Pennsylvania. The protesters are beginning to be more than just gadflies, they're beginning to be a serious, long-term problem. And the things they're talking about are not incorrect. They're raising serious and legitimate issues. They express the fears of not just a few militants but the fears of a lot of good hard-working Pennsylvanians about what's going to happen to their land, about what's going to happen to their water supplies, and bout what's going to happen to their waterways.
When I spoke in Houston I said the industry should go public and say it wants to pay a fair and reasonable tax .. that will return benefits to the people of Pennsylvania. ... and to the Pennsylvania environment, That tax needs to go to replace the money in Growing Greener. But the industry hasn't moved and the industry is willing, it appears to me, to ride this out as long as possible without a legitimate, fair tax. It's a mistake. It's one of the things turning the tide of public opinion against you.
You have to understand the context, in which you pay a tax in every other state, you have to understand the context in which this is playing out. ... Governor Corbett had to cut from many programs ... Every one of those programs that got cut or eliminated has a group of advocates. They're not wackos, they're not militants. they're people who care very much. And they see $2 sliced form their program,... and each one of them develops a rallying cry. And the rallying cry is why aren't we taxing those Marcellus Shale companies that are making 64% return on investment of 48% return on investment. The fact that the Marcellus Shale companies don't pay a severance tax has become well known to every advocacy organization in the Commonwealth and has become the whipping boy of those groups.
One report by the Pennsylvania Land Trust .. found between January, 2008 and August 2010 there were 16,014 violations accrued by 45 Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale drillers. Of these, 1,056 had the most potential impact on the environment. ... 155 violations were discharges in waterways of industrial waste, meaning fracking solution. ... These violations and this record of seeming carelessness ... have created a bipartisan coalition that cuts across party lines and geographic lines against shale drilling. And the opposition is growing. It's growing because of the roughly 6 million barrels of well liquids produced int eh 12-month period examined by the Associated Press, 1.28 million barrels, about a fifth of the total, couldn't be accounted for. Meaning there's no record the water was treated anywhere, so the logical assumption is the water was dumped into Pennsylvania waterways. Opposition is growing because some public water utilities that sit downwater from Marcellus Shale wastewater treatment plants have struggled to stay under the federal maximum contaminants, which can cause cancer ... and are presumed to be entering the water from fracking solutions. That's not crazies — that's utility companies saying that.
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