NY Gov. Cuomo Refuses to Grant Permits for Constitution Pipeline
You can’t see we didn’t predict this outcome: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made the political decision to not grant the Constitution Pipeline stream crossing permits, temporarily stopping the project from advancing. Cuomo’s lackeys at the totally humiliated and discredited Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) made the announcement on Friday, so-called Earth Day. Virulent anti-drillers erupted in spontaneous (and multiple) orgasms at the news. The DEC claims Williams, the builder of the Constitution, did not provide detailed information about pipe burial that the DEC had requested. This is a blatant, 100% lie. Gov. Cuomo is corrupt and is being led, as our friend Tom Shepstone points out, by the nose by Rockefeller money. Prosecutor Preet Bharara–are you paying attention? MDN now calls on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to bypass New York State, as is its right under the U.S. Constitution. FERC has the power to bypass Cuomo and the DEC and authorize the pipeline without NY’s stream crossing permits. Yes, hoops will need to be jumped through with various courts, but now is the time to permanently remove NY from such decision-making. The state has proven it is incapable of making independent, science-based decisions on the topic of oil and gas drilling and pipelines. Time to overrule the state and move on. Below we have the DEC’s pathetic political cover-up, along with various responses to the news…
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Last June MDN told you about Compass Natural Gas, a company that compresses natural gas and trucks it to locations not served by a pipeline, cool concept called a “virtual pipeline” (see 
In a bit of encouraging “this too shall pass,” we spotted an article that says Southwestern Energy Company is actively renewing leases expiring in West Virginia. You may recall that in the fall of 2014 Southwestern purchased 413,000 Marcellus/Utica acres, most of it in West Virginia (see
It was exactly a year ago (last Friday) that PTT Global Chemical announced their intentions to build an ethane cracker plant in Belmont County, OH (see
The Philadelphia Inquirer has published yet another “it’s really bad in the gas industry” articles–news they obviously delight in sharing. However, amid the bad news of fewer jobs and businesses falling on hard times, we spotted some good news in the article: Seneca Resources continues to operate a single drilling rig in Pennsylvania. It would be easy to idle the rig and layoff the people running it–but they’ve kept it going, to their credit. So we’d like to celebrate a little good news amid plenty of bad news. The excerpted article below highlights the story of the guy supervising that lone, still-operating Seneca rig. Along the way we get some interesting inside details about how long it takes Seneca to drill–and how much money it costs to drill a hole these days compared with just a year or two ago…
Radical fractivism brooks no dissent. You either agree with them that fracking is evil and from the devil himself, or they WILL attack you–politically, professionally, personally–anyway they can. In other words, fractivists are bullies and not interested in free speech. If you have an opposing viewpoint or try to support your views with science and facts, you’re immediately shut down. That’s how it works with these vicious fossil fuel opponents. We’ve been tracking and telling you about an issue that first began in June 2015. The federal Environmental Protection Agency, after four years of study, concluded that fracking does not contaminate groundwater supplies (see
PennFuture is a radical, anti-drilling group based in Pennsylvania. The group is the former employer of no less than two current, one former high-level deputies to PA Gov. Tom Wolf. Cindy Dunn was most recently PennFuture’s CEO. She is now the Secretary of the PA Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). John Quigley used to work for PennFuture. He’s now Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). John “legalize marijuana” Hanger was the Secretary of the PA Dept. of Planning and Policy for Wolf. Hanger recently left–the state–to join his wife and daughter in Massachusetts (see
Events related to drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling.
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Appalachian Basin poised to become petchem center; Ohio Valley natgas leads nation in growth; pipelines will boost WV economy; Schlumberger CEO sees ‘full-scale cash crisis’ in oil sector; Sixth Circuit weighs in on WOTUS; China’s rising natgas demand; and more!