Obama EPA One Last Swipe at Fossil Fuels, Changes Fracking Report
We now know that it’s possible to bribe people who work for the federal Environmental Protection Agency. That is, big money donors DO have a say in how “science” is presented by the agency. The one great, huge, towering problem that anti-drillers have is that there is no scientific evidence that supports their wild claims that fracking contaminates water–which is their favorite lie to spread. When the Environmental Protection Agency arrived at the same conclusion–fracking doesn’t pollute water–after four years of studying it, that really took the wind out of the sails of rabid fossil fuel haters (see EPA Draft Report Says Fracking Doesn’t Pollute Groundwater Supplies). The EPA reviewed research from over 950 studies and even conducted nine of their own primary studies. Conclusion: fracking doesn’t pollute water supplies. What’s a good fossil fuel hater to do? Pressure the EPA to change the outcome of their study. And pressure they did. So much so that in the final version of the report just released (full copy below), the EPA slightly modified the language. In the original draft report, the language says, “hydraulic fracturing activities have not led to widespread, systemic impacts to drinking water resources.” The final report deletes that statement and provides language that says “under some circumstances” the fracking process can harm local water supplies, but because there are “gaps” in the data, the EPA can’t say how often or how much such impacts happen. In other words, all of the science is still the same. There is no evidence that fracking hurts water. The EPA simply gave their Big Green friends some headlines to play with for a few days. Perhaps it’s no coincidence the report is 666 pages long…
Read More “Obama EPA One Last Swipe at Fossil Fuels, Changes Fracking Report”
As we mentioned in a story yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management proceeded with an online auction for BLM-controlled land in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest (see 
You may recall our story about the daughter of a Huntingdon County, PA landowner, radicalized by Big Green groups (as evidenced by her association with well known protesters previously arrested), who took to a tree on her mom’s property in order to illegally stop crews working on tree clearing for the Mariner East 2 pipeline (see 
The Rockies Express Pipeline (REX), originally built from Colorado and Wyoming to Monroe County, OH to bring natural gas from west to east, last year reversed the flow for a large and important section of the pipeline. On August 1, 2015 the section of REX from Monroe County, OH to Mexico, MO reversed the flow and began to carry 1.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Utica and Marcellus Shale gas to the Midwest, including to the greater Chicago area. REX has been hard at work on plans to expand capacity even more by beefing up compressor stations along portions of the pipeline. REX filed a plan with FERC to add another 800 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of capacity along the same portion of the reversed pipeline. In late November, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave REX the go-ahead to start additional compressors added at three locations along the route (see 
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Exterran Corporation (with 5,400 employees) specializes in natural gas compression production equipment and processing facilities. They design, build and operate compressor stations and natural gas processing plants. In 2012 MDN reported on a contract Exterran won to build three natural gas processing plants in West Virginia (see 
Rex Energy, a driller focused mainly on the Marcellus/Utica (headquartered in State College, PA), has had its share of financial challenges. It has swapped out IOUs for new IOUs, converted debt into equity (shares of stock), sold off assets in other basins–a whole lotta stuff to keep on drilling (
It’s been a while since the last episode of As the (Midstream) World Turns. In our last episode, we left beleagured Williams conducting a board of directors “refreshment” program (i.e. purge)–to clean out the old and bring in some new blood. A brief history to catch you up in case you missed our previous episodes: Following an aborted merger with Energy Transfer Equity, six of Williams’ board members tried to engineer a palace coup to depose current CEO Alan Armstrong. The coup failed and the board members quit in July (see 
We’re sure you haven’t missed the news that President-Elect Donald Trump (we love saying those words!) has nominated current Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson (T-Rex for short) to become the next Secretary of State–and fourth in line to the presidency. Tillerson is a great pick, for many reasons. He’s been doing deals in some 50 countries across the planet, dealing with some nasty customers during that time. T-Rex knows how to get things done–and he knows how to be a diplomat. He deals from a position of strength, not of weakness as our current SecState (John Kerry) and previous SecState (Hillary Clinton) have done. T-Rex will command attention and respect across the planet. And he’s a oil guy to boot–how great is that! Equally great news is Trump’s pick to run the Dept. of Energy–former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. We’ve always liked Rick (we supported him over Romney in 2012). Perry was the longest-serving governor of Texas, the biggest oil producing state in the country. He knows oil and gas, and he knows how to lead. What a breath of fresh air! Here’s some background on Trumps two key picks who have deep o&g experience…
It’s really kind of sad. Two washed-up, thoroughly discredited (indeed humiliated) Cornell professors who are on the payroll of Big Green organizations like the Park Foundation, Robert Howarth and Anthony Ingraffea, are still appearing in public to proclaim their junk science “study” from 2011 that says natural gas is worse for Mom Earth than burning coal (see