Mike Helbing, a PennFuture staff attorney since June 2013, was recently appointed to the new Pennsylvania Pipeline Infrastructure Taskforce. The task force was established by Gov. Tom Wolf and is comprised of 48 members who will develop recommendations on natural gas pipeline infrastructure to be submitted to the governor by February 2016. Task force meetings beginning later this July will be open to the public and streamed live, according to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Mike will serve on the Environmental Protection workgroup, which is one of twelve covering specific areas. The task force is expected to address a range of issues and develop best practices and strong policies for the significant number of planned gas pipeline projects across Pennsylvania.
Mike transferred in July from our Philadelphia office to our Wilkes-Barre office, just one county over from his native Lackawanna County. Prior to coming to PennFuture, he was an associate chief counsel for litigation at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is an alumnus of Penn State University and Yale Law School.
Mike's work covers water quality, stormwater, and gas drilling issues focusing on the Delaware and Susquehanna River watersheds, and includes reviewing and filing comments on pipeline and transmission line permit applications and on revisions to DEP’s oil and gas regulations. In a win for citizen participation and water quality, he was a lead negotiator on a November 2014 settlement with DEP to improve Pennsylvania's municipal stormwater permitting process.
Kate Gibbons is northeastern Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Wilkes-Barre.
