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DEP Reports ZERO Shale Gas Well Permits Under Review; DEP May Have Only 20% Of The Revenue Needed To Fund Its Oil & Gas Regulation Program

For the third time in the last eight weeks, DEP reported ZERO or only 1 shale gas well permit under review in its Oil and Gas Workload Report, which has huge implications for the funding needed to run its entire Oil and Gas Regulatory Program.

DEP’s program that regulates conventional oil and gas and shale gas wells and their infrastructure is funded almost entirely by permit application fees.

In three out of the last eight weeks, DEP has had either zero or 1 permit under review for the weeks ending-- March 1- 6 permits; March 8- 3 permits; March 15- 0 permits; March 22- 7 permits; March 29- 1 permit; April 5- 13 permits; April 12- 9 permits; and April 19- 0 permits.

DEP received 128 shale gas permits in the first 16 weeks of 2024. At this pace, DEP will receive about 416 permits this year of the 2,000 the agency says it needs to fund its Oil and Gas Program. Read more here.

Conventional oil and gas well owners only pay a very small percentage of the $10.6 million annual cost of regulating their industry-- typically about $46,100 in permit fees in a “good” year. Read more here.

Gov. Shapiro’s proposed budget includes $11 million to support the program to make up for these losses, but more may be needed if permit applications are down this much.

Kurt Klapkowski, DEP Deputy Secretary for Oil and Gas Management, told the Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board on March 19 DEP was working on a draft regulation to change the permit fees for shale gas well permits to generate the revenue needed to better support the regulatory program and hopes to present it sometime this year.

DEP’s Non-Regulatory Agenda has no schedule for consideration.

Resource Link:

-- DEP Reports Only 1 Shale Gas Well Permit Under Review Drastically Reducing The Revenue Needed To Run Its Entire Oil & Gas Regulatory Program [PaEN]

PA Oil & Gas Industry Public Notice Dashboards:

-- PA Oil & Gas Weekly Compliance Dashboard - April 20 to 26 - 2 Venting Shale Gas Wells; 16 More Conventional Abandoned Well Violations, 1 Shale Gas Well Abandonment [PaEN]

-- PA Oil & Gas Industrial Facilities: Permit Notices, Opportunities To Comment - April 27 [PaEN]

-- DEP Posted 93 Pages Of Permit-Related Notices In April 27 PA Bulletin [PaEN]

Related Articles This Week - Gas:

-- Witness At Senate Hearing On Oil & Gas Wastewater Road Dumping Reports Her Home Has Been Surrounded By Dumping; Dumping Again On The Upswing In 2024 [PaEN]

-- DEP Reports ZERO Shale Gas Well Permits Under Review; DEP May Have Only 20% Of The Revenue Needed To Fund Its Oil & Gas Regulation Program [PaEN]

-- Clean Air Council/Sierra Club: PA Falling Behind In Conventional Oil & Gas Well Plugging Bonding; Burden Falls On Taxpayers [PaEN]

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