New Report Highlights Economic Benefits From Natural Gas Production

On October 31, 2012, the American Clean Skies Foundation published a report highlighting, on a state-by-state basis, the positive economic impacts for consumers and supply chains from the increased development and production of natural gas.  The report notes that, since 2007, the oil and natural gas industry will create up to 1.6 million new jobs across the country and will increase the U.S. gross domestic product by up to $245 billion by 2017.  In breaking these numbers down, the report estimates that for every billion cubic feet of additional gas demand per day, 13,000 new drilling and pipeline jobs are created, plus thousands of additional new jobs in various downstream sectors that use natural gas.   Significant benefits highlighted in the report include Shell’s construction of an ethane plant and up to 145,000 new jobs in Pennsylvania, and how the development of natural gas resources in Ohio has brought new life to Ohio’s steel industry as U.S. Steel and Timken plan to expand to meet the increased demand for steel pipe and other drilling materials.
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Federal Court rejects PIOGA’s Contempt Motion – But Cautions Forest Service

In July 2011, PIOGA filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania seeking to hold the United States Forest Service in contempt of court for allegedly failing to adhere to the Court’s December 2009 preliminary injunction order in the Minard Run, et al. v. United States Forest Service, et al. litigation. That order prevented the Forest Service from requiring mineral owners to prepare a NEPA document before the development of oil and gas rights in the Allegheny Forest. It also required the parties to revert to a drilling proposal process that they had used from 1980 until the litigation began in 2009.
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