Pennsylvania DEP shook down the Mariner East 2 for $12.6 million in penalties, with help from the usual suspects, and is now looking to reward some folks.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is passing out goodies—$12.6 million of them—and will undoubtedly use the opportunity to reward folks reliably likely to vote for Tom Wolf this Fall. The money comes from penalties imposed in February after a Mariner East 2 pipeline shutdown by DEP. The money is now going to spread among “municipalities, county conservation districts, incorporated watershed associations, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations.” The last three will almost certainly include the sort of folks who have been harassing the Mariner East 2 from the beginning; fractivist advocacy groups wearing the masks of “charities.”

Mariner East 2, of course, has made plenty of mistakes during construction and this post is not suggest DEP shouldn’t have been on their case, enforcing the law, demanding performance and even imposing fines. That’s the way we all want DEP to work. A $12.6 million penalty to be used to pass out favors to friends during an election year is another matter, especially when the chief engineers of complaints that generated the fines happen to be organizations that will be eligible for the money. That’s a shakedown.

Read more:

http://naturalgasnow.org/dep-shakes-pipeline-company-wolf-campaign/