A Debate Over Who Regulates Gas 'Fracking' In Pa.

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Enlarge Scott Detrow/StateImpact Pennsylvania

A drilling rig looms behind a barn in Tioga County, Pa.

Scott Detrow/StateImpact Pennsylvania A drilling rig looms behind a barn in Tioga County, Pa.

A new Pennsylvania law could curb municipalities' ability to zone and regulate hydraulic fracturing — "fracking." And that raises questions about how much say a local government should have over what goes on within its borders.

State lawmakers are grappling with how to update the commonwealth's decades-old Oil and Gas Act to catch up with a natural gas drilling boom.

Right now, local regulations on where drilling rigs can go, how loudly they operate and how far they need to be from buildings differ from community to community. Pennsylvania lawmakers who support the natural gas drilling industry are trying to standardize the rules across the state.

"It can be like the equivalent of needing to get a new driver's license for every state that you go through when you're traveling," says Kathryn Klaber, head of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents drillers in Pennsylvania.

And some places, such as Pittsburgh, have passed outright bans on fracking. So have several New York communities, in anticipation of drilling in the Empire State.

A measure now before Pennsylvania lawmakers would assign an "impact" fee to each Marcellus Shale well.

It would also set statewide guidelines for what local governments can and can't regulate.

So if a municipality went beyond the new guidelines, the state attorney general would have the power to sue the local government and ban it from receiving revenue from the impact fee charged on each well.

Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, says streamlining local regulations will help build an industry and create thousands of jobs.

But State Sen. Jim Ferlo, a Democrat, says the legislation "threatens democracy."

"The political action donors that have given millions of dollars to this governor and to those in political leadership in the House and the Senate ... could not have asked for a better piece of legislation," Ferlo says.

Actually, they could have.

An earlier version of the bill backed by Corbett would have nullified all local regulation of natural gas drilling. Instead, the latest version sets strict limits on regulation. For example, townships wouldn't be allowed to ban drilling in residential areas.

The head of Pennsylvania's township supervisors association called the earlier outright ban "oppressive" to local government. But he says his group can live with the new language.

Not all local officials feel that way.

Brian Coppola sits on the Board of Supervisors in Robinson Township, a community with more than 40 Marcellus Shale wells. He calls state-level restrictions on what local governments can regulate a "disaster," and he thinks the latest bill is just as bad as the earlier across-the-board regulation ban.

"I would say that anything that allows a heavy-industrial use to go into our residential areas is pre-emption," he said. "Because that really is the foundation of zoning."

But pro-drilling groups say residential drilling bans actually hamper private property owners. "If I live in a residential area, don't I have a right to lease my natural gas?" she said.

Pennsylvania's neighbor, Ohio, sits on top of shale deposits, too. But the Buckeye State is ahead of Pennsylvania on this issue. It already enforces across-the-board zoning consistency.

Klaber of the Marcellus Shale Coalition says if a new law doesn't pass, Pennsylvania drillers will go to Ohio.

Pennsylvania's House and Senate have passed two different versions of the bill.

The differences will be hashed out over the coming weeks, with the goal of signing a bill into law by the end of the year.

Scott Detrow is a Pennsylvania-based reporter for NPR's StateImpact network, which focuses on government reporting in the states. Read More About It

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The digested Health Bill debate

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One hundred peers lined up to speak in this week's two-day debate on the government's plans to reform the NHS in England. If for some reason you were unable to find time to watch it all, fear not: Democracy Live has compiled this selection of highlights.

Watch the unedited first part of the Health and Social Care Bill debate above or click on the links in the text below to go directly to each peer's speech

Opening the debate, Lord Howe sought to pre-empt criticism that the responsibility of the secretary of state for health for the NHS would be watered down by the bill.

"Managing the range of healthcare needs for our diverse population is now so complex that no one would argue that it is a task best carried out from Whitehall," he argued.

The bill sought to bring about a "fundamental shift in the balance of power" from politicians to patients and doctors, the minister asserted, which would raise standards.

"The case for change is clear and compelling, and I am personally in no doubt that the changes set out in this bill are right for our NHS and, more importantly, right for patients," he concluded.

Labour peer and former GP Lord Rea

But the government's staunchest critic in the Lords was not soothed. Labour's Lord Rea set out to persuade his colleagues that the government had no democratic mandate to introduce the reforms and back his amendment to throw them out altogether - a highly unusual move for legislation that has already been approved by MPs.

Former Labour cabinet minister and founder of the SDP Lord Owen, who now sits as an independent peer, did not want to block the bill but he argued that the changes in it were so significant that a special committee should be established to look at them in detail.

After the health secretary's role had changed, he wondered, who would be in charge during a pandemic? "Adversarial debates across the floor of this House" were not the right medium for making judgements of such profound importance, he averred.

Labour frontbencher Baroness Thornton

Opposition health minister, Baroness Thornton, declared: "People did not expect, did not vote for and do not want these changes."

Focusing on the structural changes to NHS administration, she claimed that the new NHS Commissioning Board would be the "biggest quango in the world" and complained that Monitor was being transformed into a "huge bureaucratic economic regulator".

"The Liberal Party was in at the birth of the NHS," she noted, pleading with Lib Dem peers not to put that "legacy... in jeopardy".

Senior Lib Dem peer Baroness Williams

Baroness Williams told peers that extremely high levels of satisfaction with the current system were being overlooked, and that there was a pervasive fear that the NHS would be "essentially market based" under the changes.

She warned of the "frightening" consequences of mixing medicine and profit, suggesting that some US doctors were reluctant to cut down on carrying out lucrative prostate cancer tests despite warnings that they might cause incontinence and impotence.

Former Conservative Health Secretary Baroness Bottomley

Lady Bottomley suggested that some campaigning material she had received prior to the debate had been wide of the mark.

It exhorted her to "ensure my grandchildren can have the same benefits that you and I have received from the NHS since 1948", she revealed.

"I do not want my grandchildren to have the same benefits; my grandchildren have high standards. Like everybody else in this House, I want my grandchildren to have a better, more responsive, more effective and cost-effective NHS. Only through this bill will we achieve that."

Surgeon and former Labour health minister Lord Darzi

Lord Darzi, who conducted his own review of the NHS three years ago, said the "right competition for the right reasons" could drive up standards by "sparking creativity and lighting the fire of innovation" among clinicians.

But he criticised the complexity of the proposed new lines of accountability in the NHS.

Historian and broadcaster Lord Hennessy

Crossbencher Lord Hennessy, a co-signatory to Lord Owen's amendment, said the day the NHS was created was the "closest we have ever come to institutionalising altruism".

A way had to be found that did not involve the health secretary "abandoning" his role as the guarantor of a comprehensive service, free at the point of delivery, he said, and the special committee envisaged by his amendment would be able to do just that.

Fertility expert and broadcaster Lord Winston

Labour's Lord Winston spelled out why he believed "the legacy of the previous government which we keep hearing about might be a bit better than has been suggested by the present government".

The changes were "unnecessary" and "irresponsible", he lamented.

Lady Hussein Ece agreed the legislation was not perfect.

But she added: "I think most of us would agree that the status quo is not really an option." The bill could improve patient care and accountability, she predicted, if amended appropriately during its passage through the upper chamber.

Conservative former Health Secretary Lord Fowler

Lord Fowler lambasted a "dreary" misconception: "The use of the private sector does not mean that one is privatising the service."

He also dismissed the Owen-Hennessy bid to refer the bill to a special committee, telling peers that "the normal committee processes of the House would be sufficient" scrutiny for the legislation.

Finally, Lord Howe faced the daunting task of responding to the marathon debate. Peers agreed to give the bill a second reading, and then let it proceed with normal committee-stage scrutiny without establishing the special committee envisaged by Lord Owen and Lord Hennessy.

Compiled by Democracy Live's Ed Lowther

democracylive@bbc.co.uk

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Analysis: The debate over closing child heart surgery units

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27 September 2011 Last updated at 11:17 GMT By Jane Hughes Health correspondent, BBC News Nicolas Tompkins had surgery at 2.5 weeks Nicolas Tompkins' parents believe he wouldn't be with them if it wasn't for the doctors and nurses at the Royal Brompton Hospital in central London.

At just four weeks old, he's recovering from a 15-hour operation to correct a complicated and rare defect in his heart.

Surgeons effectively had to re-wire it, after discovering that his lungs weren't properly connected, and he wasn't getting enough oxygen.

He was lucky to be treated by a world expert in his condition.

His parents are incredulous at the thought that the team which saved his life could be about to be broken up.

"Everybody we meet here, every doctor, every nurse, is clearly at the top of their game," said his father, Andrew Tompkins. "There's nowhere like this in the world. How could they want to close it?"

Continue reading the main story

If we get centres of excellence, we can save money and still get better care”

End Quote Mike Farrar NHS Confederation Chief Executive The reason is that children's heart surgery across England is being reorganised. And, as one of three hospitals in London carrying out this kind of specialised paediatric treatment, the Royal Brompton was told it would have to scale down its children's heart unit and stop doing all operations.

Other units in Leeds, Southampton, Newcastle and Leicester are still waiting for a decision as to whether they will also stop doing operations. Ultimately, at least four will close across England.

The review does not affect patients in Scotland, who are all treated in Glasgow. Welsh patients are treated in England, while patients in Northern Ireland travel to Dublin for treatment.

Bristol scandal

The review of children's heart surgery came about as a result of the inquiry into the Bristol heart babies scandal in the 1990s, when a number of babies died needlessly during operations by surgeons with insufficient experience. It concluded that children would get better, safer care if there were fewer, larger, more specialised units.

"We know the best results can only be achieved by surgeons and units treating a lot of patients," said Professor Norman Williams, President of the Royal College of Surgeons. "And we also know that patients benefit from units with enough surgeons to give a round-the-clock service."

Yet, as the Royal Brompton's experience shows, reorganising services is not straightforward.

Without cardiac patients, it says its paediatric intensive care unit would no longer be viable. And without intensive care, it would no longer be able to offer its specialist children's lung services - treating children with cystic fibrosis and other conditions. It says its respiratory unit is second to none in the country, and many, many patients will lose out.

And so one part of the NHS is going head-to-head against another in the High Court. Watching around the country are not just the other units under threat, but NHS hospital trusts which know they must reorganise other hospital services to remain viable and provide the best possible patient care.

Tough challenge

The NHS Confederation has said the reconfiguration process will become increasingly necessary; not just because of a tougher financial climate, but also to improve care.

"At the moment, we're not getting the best outcomes we can because some services are distributed across too many sites," said NHS Confederation Chief Executive, Mike Farrar. "If we get centres of excellence, we can save money and still get better care."

Reorganising services is one of the hardest things the health service has to do, said Chris Ham, head of the health thinktank, the Kings Fund.

"But it is absolutely necessary at the present time," he said. "Not first and foremost because of the financial pressures but because we will only deliver world class standards of care if we grasp this nettle and take decisions that are long overdue by concentrating some of those services in fewer hospitals."

The fight over the future of the Royal Brompton may well be one of many more to come.

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