Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA
Heinz, William Penn the Money Behind PA’s RGGI Carbon Tax Push
Two Pennsylvania-based nonprofit foundations that actively seek to end the use of fossil fuels–the Heinz Endowments and the William Penn Foundation–have been outed as the groups financing the push for a Marcellus-killing carbon tax in the state called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Will anyone notice and will anyone care that these massive, tax-exempt organizations are engaged in overt politicking (by funding political green groups), in violation of federal and state law? Probably not.
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Just coming to light for us now is a long-running lawsuit in Tioga County, PA by landowners who claim that UGI has taken their mineral rights as part of operating the Meeker Storage Field, an underground natural gas storage facility. The landowners lost the lawsuit in the Court of Common Pleas of Tioga County (trial court) in March 2019 (although the case began in 2016). The landowners appealed to Commonwealth Court and lost there too, in November 2020. The landowners appealed again, to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Supremes have just accepted the case.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) plan to flow more natural gas to Westchester and New York City is called the East 300 Upgrade Project. The project involves upgrades at two existing compressor stations (in Pennsylvania), along with building a brand new compressor station in West Milford (Passaic County), just across the border and not far from Westchester County, NY. Two weeks ago we told you area residents and leftwing environmentalists had convinced the county to officially oppose the project (see 
Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. The company announced yesterday it is floating new “senior notes” (we call them IOUs) to retire or pay off other notes coming due.
For years those who have supported natural gas have made the argument that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have been decreasing in the U.S. because of the increased use of natural gas. How can that be, given burning natural gas causes the release of CO2? Because natural gas has captured market share and largely replaced the use of coal in electric power generation. As more natgas is used, CO2 emissions go down. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has just released numbers proving, without a doubt, just how much natgas has helped to lower CO2 emissions over the past 17 years.
In an effort to prove natural gas is not Satanic, three Marcellus/Utica drillers–Southwestern Energy, EQT, and Chesapeake Energy–have signed up for a certification program by Project Canary called TrustWell. The program certifies that the natural gas produced by these companies is responsibly sourced natural gas (RSG). For the first time a midstream (pipeline) company, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE), has earned a TrustWell certification for a piece of equipment, the company’s compressor units.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: 10th Annual Marcellus and Manufacturing Development Conference; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Line 3 foes in northern MN block road, chain themselves to equipment; NATIONAL: At the Department of Energy, ‘process’ takes a back seat to politics; INTERNATIONAL: NOCs to fill void as majors retreat from oil and gas; TC Energy, Alberta government pull plug on Keystone XL oil pipeline.