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Eco-Leftists Try to Stop Global Warming Debate at PA House Hearing

Some of those who attended the hearing and who believe in global warming wore tinfoil hats, which we find apropos

Kudos to Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, Chairman of the PA House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee, for being the adult in the room at yesterday’s hearing on so-called climate change (i.e. man-made global warming). Metcalfe, who is a “denier” that mankind is catastrophically causing the earth to toast, arranged a hearing on “Pennsylvania CO2 and climate.” He included six witnesses who testified they believe in the fairy tale of man-made global warming, and five witnesses who don’t, to offer their best evidence for/against. That’s about as even as it gets. Yet eco-leftists, like the executive director of PennEnvironment, compared those (of us) who hold an opinion other than his, to Nazis.
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Falling WV Severance Tax Revenue a Problem for Gov. Justice

We have, for years, brought you arguments about the superiority of an impact fee over a severance tax (see Allegheny Institute: PA Impact Fee is Better than a Severance Tax and Showdown: Comparing PA Impact Fee to WV Severance Tax). One of the problems with a severance tax is that when the price of gas is high, the tax revenues flow, but when the price of gas goes low, severance taxes on that gas dry up. That’s what’s happening in West Virginia right now–where they have a 5% severance tax on natural gas production.
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Will CT Gov Cave to Extremists and Block Gas-Fired Power Plant?

The State of Connecticut’s “Siting Council” changed its mind in July and approved NTE Energy’s proposed project to build a 650-megawatt natural gas-fired electric plant in Killingly (see Connecticut Approves New Natgas-Fired Electric Plant in Killingly). The Siting Council recognized that some 6,000 megawatts of older, less-efficient power plants in the region are retiring and without new plants coming online to provide electricity, Connecticut and its neighboring New England states will begin to experience rolling blackouts if they don’t make up the difference with new supplies of electricity. However, CT Gov. Ned Lamont now sounds like he’s having second thoughts on approving the plant.
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PA Public Utility Commission Gets New Commissioner: Ralph Yanora

Ralph Yanora

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) has 522 employees, including attorneys, rate and service analysts, auditors, economists, engineers, motor transit and railroad specialists, communications specialists, safety inspectors and enforcement investigators. The agency is responsible for oversight of public utilities operating in the Commonwealth of PA. Some of that responsibility includes oversight of natural gas pipelines–like the Mariner East trio of pipelines. So the PUC is an important agency for the Marcellus industry. There are five Commissioners who oversee the agency. One left in March and a replacement was just appointed by the state legislature.
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Appalachian Basin Real Estate Conference Coming Dec 11-12 in WV

One of the privileges of writing about the Marcellus/Utica industry is the occasional opportunity to attend worthwhile events and connect with the terrific people who work in this industry. Shale Insight (last week in Pittsburgh) was one of those events. MDN editor Jim Willis will attend another such event in a few weeks: Midstream PA 2019. Joe Barone, founder of Shale Directories, is the guy behind Midstream PA and similar events. Joe always puts on a good conference. Joe and Bryce Custer, from NAI Ohio River Corridor commercial real estate brokerage, have created a brand new event called the Appalachian Basin Real Estate Conference. Looks like another winner!
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Using Independent Data to Evaluate Shale Drilling Reserves

Last year a hedge fund manager tried pitching a fund that would “bet against” shale drillers to investors. At the time he was “basically kicked out of every office in New York City.” Good! However, the now-former hedge fund manager has an advisory service that in a sense also disparages the shale industry, but perhaps performs a valuable service for the industry. The new company uses data that is number-crunched from state records, applying assumptions that are “more realistic” than numbers offered by companies in investor presentations when it comes to how much the wells they *will* drill will produce. That is, this new service provides a more realistic look at reserves–proven and otherwise.
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Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Oct 29, 2019

MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: PA House Judiciary Committee holds Dec. 16 hearing on bipartisan anti-SLAPP lawsuit legislation; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: California pro-natural gas coalition using ‘guerilla’ tactics; DTE’s electricity subsidiary aims at net zero carbon emissions by 2050; Permian natural gas prices get crushed, again; NATIONAL: US drilling on federal and Indian lands surges in 2019; Key takeaways from Q3 ’19 energy earnings (part 1); Natural-gas futures rally to highest finish this month; An insider’s look at the ins and outs of international LPG trading; INTERNATIONAL: EIA projects that natural gas consumption in Asia will continue to outpace supply; The Arctic is Russia’s key to LNG dominance.
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