Exclusive: PA EQB Board Member Speaks Out Against RGGI Carbon Tax
On Tuesday, Sept. 15 the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB), one of over two dozen boards and committees and commissions part of the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), will hold a hearing and cast a key vote on Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposal to force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The EQB is one of four rulemaking authorities within the DEP–perhaps the most powerful DEP committee, with the power to create new binding regulations affecting every citizen in the state. Although tomorrow’s vote won’t be the final vote enacting Wolf’s plan, it is an important vote, a key vote, and will significantly advance the process of joining RGGI. One EQB member, Mark Caskey, is sounding the alarm on RGGI, pledging to vote against it. MDN interviewed Mark last week. Below is a summary of our talk.
Read More “Exclusive: PA EQB Board Member Speaks Out Against RGGI Carbon Tax”
Last week MDN told you that Enbridge had begun testing its Weymouth, Massachusetts compressor station project, the final piece of the company’s $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project (see 
Sounding downright nasty and mean, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell has ordered Sunoco Logistics Partners (Energy Transfer) to reroute part of the Mariner East 2X pipeline around Marsh Creek Lake State Park, following a spill of nontoxic drilling mud that ended up in Marsh Creek Lake in Chester County. McDonnell uses combative and incendiary words like Sunoco “blatantly disregarded the citizens” of Chester County, has been “careless” and is guilty of “unlawful actions.” In a rather uppity tone, McDonnell says he will “not stand for more of the same” and he is “demanding a proper cleanup” of the site. Sunoco has been working diligently to clean up the spill since it happened.
Bad news for leftists Joe Biden and Kamala Harris: A majority of registered voters in their own party support using natural gas as an energy source, according to a new independent, national poll. No wonder both Biden AND Harris are furiously backpedaling (i.e. lying) about their views on fracking. They risk losing PA, OH, and other states where fracking is a big deal.
Amid all the prattling about so-called renewable energy and how renewables are taking over the world and everyone should just dump using fossil fuels right now because renewable nirvana is here…comes this splash of cold, hard truth. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has run the numbers and found that in 2019, like in years past, the vast majority of the energy used by Americans comes from fossil fuels. Some 80% of all the energy we consumed in this country last year came from fossil fuels. Renewables? A minuscule fraction.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Pence touts ‘American energy renaissance’ in visit to Beaver County drilling site; W.Va. Coal Association criticizes Brooke County power project; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Dominion Energy South Carolina celebrates milestone of serving 400,000 natural gas customers; What’s ailing California’s electric system?; NATIONAL: US oil policy at stake in November presidential election; Trafigura sees no US shale growth until end-2021 amid ‘enforced sabbatical’; The new geopolitics of energy; U.S. oil & gas rig count falls for the first time in four weeks; A secret recording reveals oil executives’ private views on climate change; The economics of U.S. LNG in a competitive global gas market; INTERNATIONAL: Saudi Aramco is now suffering the consequences of a failed oil price war; Greenpeace blocks tanker from delivering oil to Swedish refinery.