Fracking ban under federal assault

It’s all in the headline: “Local representatives and Trump administration reopen fracking conversation for Delaware River Basin.”

Freshman Republican U.S. Congressman Rob Bresnahan (PA-8) hosted a gathering of about 15 folks from Pennsylvania who have been unhappy the fracking ban since it was promulgated by the Delaware River Basin Commission in 2021.

Their unhappiness is not news, but their guest — Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin — certainly is, and signals significant support for the opposition.

From the story:

Asked if there’s a commitment from the Trump administration to try and open up drilling in Northeast Pennsylvania, Zeldin said that “President Trump is someone I feel confident we can approach [with] any good idea [and] his response is going to be that he wants to get it done as quickly as possible.” If there’s a “specific localized ask for this area,” members of the administration could “add a little bit of muscle” behind the local support in approaching the president, he said.

And this is right on the heels of a federal judge dismissing Wayne Land and Mineral Right Group’s suit against the DRBC over the fracking ban.

Yes, it makes your head spin. There’s no obvious path for the federal government to kibosh the wishes of the four governors. There are five DRBC commissioners: the governors and a representative of the federal government, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That representative abstained from the ban vote four years ago.

Before we leave this story, I hope you clicked on the link, which brings you to the site of The River Reporter, a weekly newspaper in Narrowsburg, N.Y. I’d love for them to get lots of clicks and I’d also love the reporter who wrote it, Liam Mayo, to be in the spotlight for a moment.

There were only two media representatives at this gathering, Mayo and television news station WNEP. (Delaware Currents was not informed of the meeting.)

Lucky for us, Mayo has written a compelling story. And rounding out the coverage is this story from WVIA, where the names of all the attendees are listed.

Notably, none of the clean-water advocacy groups were at the meeting, and neither was the Delaware River Basin Commission.

Work in the watershed continues unabated. The New Jersey Office of Planning Advocacy is holding meetings around the state to present the state’s Development and Redevelopment Plan. We were at the one held at the offices of the New Jersey Highlands offices, and had a chance to understand what the New Jersey Highlands is doing with its most valuable export: water.

And another story from a solid source: Inside Climates News ran a story by Jon Hurdle, who often writes for New Jersey Spotlight on water issues, discussing the DRBC’s State of the Basin report and its concern that rising sea levels could threaten drinking-water intakes for millions of people in the Philadelphia region. 

It’s not the first time we’ve written about this, but it does need to be repeated.

Thanks for reading,