U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Atlantic Coast Pipeline Case
Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) previously filed a request with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that judicially creates a new law stipulating pipelines can’t cross under the Appalachian Trail without (no kidding) an Act of Congress. The Supremes get 8,000 such requests each year, and accept maybe 80 (or 1%). Lightning struck. The ACP case was accepted by the Supremes on Friday. This is *seriously* good news!
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It’s not often (these days) we come across a new instance of publicly-known leasing terms in the Marcellus/Utica. We like to highlight such cases when we see them. In Saturday’s Pennsylvania Bulletin, the state Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), the agency in charge of state-owned land, published details of a newly signed lease for 40.6 acres of creekbed in Greene County, PA. The DCNR got its standard $4,000 per acre signing bonus plus will get a 20% royalty from any gas produced. Who did they lease to? And why do we object to this practice so strenuously? To learn those details, you need an 
For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, PA, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. Part of the ordinance was tossed, and earlier this year a judge ordered the town to pay $102,000 in legal fees incurred by the operator the town has harmed by its action (see 
Last Wednesday MDN told you that the first “train” or unit of Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island, Georgia LNG export facility is now up and running (see 
Each year the West Virginia legislature meets for 60 calendar days. Those days are jam-packed with activity when they happen. As the WV oil and gas industry looks ahead to the next session, due to begin in January, there’s already a list of proposed bills the oil and gas industry supports, and some bills it definitely does not support. According to Anne Blankenship, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Gas Association (WVONGA), West Virginia has “for years” been behind both Pennsylvania and Ohio when it comes to promoting the shale industry. It’s time, says Blankenship, to become “more competitive” with those states. Will this be the year?
As MDN reported two weeks ago, so-called “activist investors” Elliott Management and D.E. Shaw want Marathon Petroleum (parent of MPLX, otherwise known as MarkWest Energy) to split itself into three separate companies, and a couple of other large shareholders are calling for Marathon CEO Gary Heminger to be fired (see 
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