ANNAPOLIS — The commission tasked with advising Maryland on possible shale gas production supports a change in the law that would make it easier for landowners to bring claims against drillers regarding water contamination and other damages near hydraulic fracturing ...

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ANNAPOLIS — Maryland lawmakers are starting to debate how much “severance tax” should be imposed on the natural gas that might be produced from the Marcellus Shale rock formation in Western Maryland. Though it is not clear when, or even ...

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WASHINGTON — Critics have blamed hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for environmental disturbances including landscape degradation, air pollution and groundwater contamination — conditions that may affect the health of surrounding areas. But the jury is still out on whether these claims ...

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GARRETT COUNTY — Garrett County resident Dana Shimrock was relieved when Maryland put the brakes on drilling in the natural gas-rich Marcellus Shale before a single well could be drilled. “They had just completed a well not far from me ...

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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will cautiously open up more areas in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska’s coast to oil and gas drilling. The drilling plans are much narrower in scope than what the administration had said it ...

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HAGERSTOWN — Maryland’s attorney general is urging people in the western part of the state to check with their mortgage lender before signing a mineral-rights lease. Douglas Gansler says some federally approved mortgages have requirements that conflict with mineral-rights leases. ...

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Litigation over oil and natural gas industry techniques that include hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is underway across the country and expected to spread. Over the past few years, the use of fracking to drive natural gas out of shale rock ...

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ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A U.S. Department of Energy panel wants energy companies to reveal all the chemicals they use in a drilling technique that has allowed them to reach huge and previously inaccessible deposits of natural gas and paved the ...

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Mayor Lucille Blum and the other elected leaders of New Martinsville thought they were doing a good thing when they banned Marcellus shale gas drilling in their small town on the Ohio River. The unanimous vote had ...

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ANNAPOLIS — Gov. Martin O’Malley on Tuesday announced members of a panel to study the short-term and long-term effects of potential natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale in western Maryland. O’Malley last month set a timeline for state agencies ...

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