RST: New gas-drilling law: who benefits? Also, lawmaker pension update

Radio Smart talk for Monday, July 15:

StateImpact Pennsylvania reporter Marie Cusick will appear on Monday’s Radio Smart Talk to explain a controversial natural gas drilling bill signed by Gov. Tom Corbett last week.

Under the legislation, drillers would have to disclose more information to landowners who lease their properties for drilling to ensure transparency in the amount of royalties paid to them. Some gas companies were deducting the cost of getting natural gas to market from royalties.

According to critics, the bill would allow deep underground horizontal drilling across several properties known as pooling. They say lease owners who negotiated shallow vertical wells before Marcellus Shale drilling greatly expanded could lose out on royalties or would be unable to renegotiate.

Gov. Corbett had said he opposed “forced” pooling, which involves drilling horizontal wells under land that hasn’t been leased. The governor says the new law does not constitute forced pooling.

Also, the activist group Rock the Capital points out that a 1995 law that provided for cost-of-living pay increases and an increase in pensions for legislators in 2001 is costing taxpayers millions. The group’s Eric Epstein will appear on Radio Smart Talk to explain.

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