Jon Hurdle | StateImpact Pennsylvania

Natural gas industry says its product remains essential to reliable power generation

Renewed attempts by Pennsylvania House Republicans to boost natural gas production by ending a ban on new drilling on public lands, among other measures, are unlikely to succeed because the industry already owns many unused leases on those lands, and because it lacks the pipeline capacity to take any new gas to market even if it was produced, analysts said.

An advisory panel to the Department of Environmental Protection meets today to consider a plan to set Pennsylvania’s first independent health limits on two kinds of “forever chemicals” in drinking water amid criticism from environmentalists that the proposed rules wouldn’t do enough to protect public health.