Elected officials and others discussed drilling for natural gas in the Delaware River basin, attracting gas-powered data centers and the "rain tax" in Northeast Pennsylvania during a roundtable Sunday with the nation's top environmental official.
Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin attended the session at The Swiftwater, a hotel and resort in Pocono Twp., Monroe County. U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan organized the roundtable.
“He was very excited to go into dialogue about possible solutions as well as the economic opportunity with the natural gas industry in the Delaware River Basin,” Bresnahan said Monday in a telephone interview. “It could be a billion dollar industry. This is a way that we can rebuild our public schools, our critical infrastructure systems, and just an unlimited level of opportunity with the right investment.”
Bresnahan said the roundtable is an important step in unleashing energy dominance and eliminating the rain tax in the 8th Congressional District, which he represents.
Basin ban
At the height of World War II, the Delaware River was considered an open sewer for public and industrial waste, according to the Delaware River Basin Commission.
The pollution spurred the commission's formation in 1961. The commission has legal authority over the basin's water quality and availability issues.
The commission is made up of the governors of the basin states — Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware — and a commissioner appointed by the president.
About 40 percent of the basin lies in Pennsylvania and New York with Marcellus and Utica shale formations underneath, according to the commission. In February 2021, the commission prohibited high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to release gas from hydrocarbon-bearing rock formations like the Marcellus and Utica.
The vast, gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation underlies almost two-thirds of Pennsylvania. Fracking fluid typically mixes water, sand and chemicals to extract the gas from the earth. Critics say the process creates toxic pollution that harms soil, water, plants, wildlife and humans.
Bresnahan said fracking can be done safely.
“We can meet demands of conservationists, but at the end of the day, landowners feel like their land is stolen from them, that they aren't able to do with their property what they should be able to do,” said Bresnahan. “There's no secret that Pennsylvania is an energy epicenter, so we find that this would be a great way to catapult these conversations and hopefully bring some real change.”
A commission spokesperson declined to comment.
“As we did not attend,” according to the spokesperson.
U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani upheld the commission's fracking ban last month after a nine-year challenge by the Wayne Land and Mineral Group. The group owns about 180 acres with deposits of natural gas and minerals in Wayne County. About 75 acres are in the basin, according to court records.
The presidential candidates sparred over fracking last year. President Donald Trump promised to “drill baby drill” in Pennsylvania and often criticized his opponent, former vice president Kamala Harris, for opposing fracking. Harris said she changed her mind and stopped opposing fracking after she and President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
From gas to data
John Augustine, president and CEO of Penn’s Northeast, said he told the session that gas could help power data centers for artificial intelligence in Northeast Pennsylvania.
"We have an opportunity to be a data center capital of the Northeast, if not the United States, because, again, they are energy intensive operations. They bring hundreds of jobs for construction," he said.
Augustine said at least two companies want to open data centers in the region.
"I don't want to say exactly where yet, because we're under an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), but there are active discussions," he said.
Last March, Amazon Web Services announced it would buy the Cumulus Data Center for $650 million from Talen Energy. Talen company operates the neighboring Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, a nuclear power plant in Salem Twp., Luzerne County. The 1,200-acre data center wouldn't use natural gas but rather carbon-free energy from the power plant.
Ending the 'rain tax'
In 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, which in the 1970s was found to contain one of the planet’s first marine dead zones. The area, depleted of oxygen, couldn’t support aquatic life.
The Susquehanna River, which ends at the bay, is as one of the bay's top pollution sources.
“Our residents are concerned as to why they are paying for something hundreds of miles away,” Bresnahan said.
The bay's northern portion is in Maryland, and the southern part in Virginia.
“To comply with it, Pennsylvania implemented a stormwater management fee on municipalities,” Bresnahan said.
In Luzerne County, residents in about 32 municipalities pay the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority a fee to clean up stormwater that mixes with sewage before discharge into the Susquehanna.
“What's really interesting is, only 87 of the state's 2,500 municipalities have implemented a quote unquote rain tax,” Bresnahan said.
Augustine, a Mountain Top resident who doesn't have to pay the fee, called it an unfunded mandate by the federal government.
"Only certain residents in a commonwealth are being forced to pay money to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay, that watershed runs all the way into New York, and those folks aren't paying a dime. And you know, other parts of Pennsylvania aren't paying anything,” he said.
He said Zeldin listened and offered to review the federal requirement.
"A lot of it just came down to the unfairness of regulations that are being put on certain Pennsylvanians, not all of them," he said.
As for eliminating or revamping the rain tax, Bresnahan said Sunday's roundtable was the first step in bringing the issue to the “powers that be that are in positions to make a difference.”
“Is this something that could be done through the administrator? Is it a way that we can phase it out over a period of time? Could it be done through executive order?” he asked. “Ultimately, that was my job, and is my job as a federal representative, is to be able to advocate for the people of northeastern Pennsylvania on a federal level.”
The 8th Congressional District covers all of Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike counties; and parts of Luzerne and Monroe Counties.
Roundtable participants included state senators Lisa Baker and Rosemary Brown, state representatives Brenda Pugh, Jonathan Fritz, Tarah Probst and Jamie Walsh; Wayne County Commissioner Brian Smith, Wayne County Landowners Association leaders Tom Shepstone and Curt Coccodrilli, Northeast PA Building Trades President Warren Faust, Pennsylvania Utility Commission Commissioner Ralph Yanora, LiUNA Business Manager Tony Seiwell, and Kriger Construction General Manager James Marzolino.
Augustine says Zeldin’s visit shows the Trump administration is willing to listen.
"I don't remember the last time a cabinet level person you know came to listen about what our needs are," he said.
