Rendell advisers getting jobs with shale gas firms

Another member of Gov. Rendell's inner circle has left to work for a Marcellus Shale natural gas producer, the third high-ranking administration official in the last year to move directly into the fast-growing industry.

Sarah Battisti, one of Rendell's five deputy chiefs of staff, has taken a government affairs position with BG Group, a British gas company that recently bought a stake in Pennsylvania's natural gas business, Steve Crawford, Rendell's chief of staff, said Monday.

With seven months remaining in Rendell's term, Battisti's departure could signal a migration of experienced administration aides into the natural gas industry, which is regulated by the state Department of Environmental Protection and is deeply enmeshed in a legislative debate over proposals to tax gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale formation.

"One thing the industry appears to have at their ready disposal is money, so they're hiring lots of people to help with their lobbying or permitting problems," Crawford said.

Battisti's departure comes two months after Barbara Sexton, the executive deputy secretary of environmental protection, left to work in governmental affairs for Chesapeake Energy Corp., an Oklahoma company that is one of the nation's largest gas exploration firms.

And last fall, K. Scott Roy, Rendell's executive deputy chief of staff, raised eyebrows when he went to work for Range Resources Corp. Roy was chief liaison between the governor's office and the gas industry and environmental groups, and his hiring came soon after Rendell dropped efforts last year to enact a natural gas tax. The governor said Roy's new job had nothing to do with his decision.

Crawford said Battisti had not played a critical policy-making role on natural gas issues. Battisti, 31, who has worked in the governor's office for seven years, "was more monitor and note-taker than decisionmaker," he said.

Efforts to reach Battisti for comment on Monday were unsuccessful.

Natural-gas drilling has increased dramatically in Pennsylvania in the last two years as operators have tapped into the mile-deep formation that underlies much of Pennsylvania and several surrounding states. The drilling is contributing to an economic boom in rural Pennsylvania, but also triggering environmental protests.