MVP Continues Plans for NC Southgate, Negotiates with Landowners
Equitrans Midstream isn’t letting the grass grow under its feet with respect to advancing plans for the MVP (Mountain Valley Pipeline) Southgate project–a 75-mile extension of the not-yet-completed MVP mainline. At the end of June, we told you that Equitrans won a court case in which anti-fossil fuelers challenged a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) certificate that allows the Southgate project to get built (see Fed Court Backs FERC Approval of MVP Southgate Pipeline). Equitrans/MVP is now negotiating with 85 landowners in North Carolina to build the Southgate pipeline across their land.
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Pennsylvania State Police are investigating the vandalism and theft of copper from a Coterra Energy well pad on Stockholm Road in Rush Township in Susquehanna County, PA, sometime between July 8 and 14. The case appears to be your garden-variety case of lowlifes stealing copper to resell it (a “crime of opportunity”), and not some sort of statement by environmental wackos. But, one never knows with wackos…
The leftist members of the Allegheny, PA County Council have proven just how leftward they have lurched (and how unhinged they have become). Last night the Council voted to overturn the veto of a ban on drilling for natural gas under (never on top of) county parks. The Council’s action denies taxpayers millions of dollars in revenue to fix and repair and expand county parks. County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, a Democrat himself, vetoed the idiotic ban, but the Democrats of the County Council just couldn’t help themselves. They voted to override Fitzgerald’s veto. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Welcome to the People’s Republic of Allegheny County.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, did the country (and his own party) a huge favor when he pushed the temporary pause button on committing trillions of dollars of new inflationary spending on Big Green programs called the Biden Build Back Better bill (see 
Given the record of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with blocking new natural gas pipeline projects (and harassing already-built pipelines), Congressional Republicans are questioning the role FERC should play in approving hydrogen pipelines. The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing yesterday, and Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming expressed concerns that FERC may use blending hydrogen with natgas in pipelines as an excuse to impose new restrictions on existing natgas pipelines.
In a March 3rd Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) asked Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick this question: “Has anyone higher up in the [Biden] administration ever spoken to you in regards to somehow slow-walking or otherwise impeding or otherwise accentuating policy that would have the effect of impeding the development of natural gas pipelines?” Chairman Glick responded with an unambiguous “no.” Yet FERC refuses to release records of communications and meetings with the White House to back up Glick’s statement. FERC has just been sued to force the release of those records.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: U.S. Coast Guard contains over 1 mn gallons from longest oil spill; NATIONAL: Joe Biden’s war on fossil fuels; Don’t bet on Biden’s promises that oil prices will drop; INTERNATIONAL: Putin says Nord Stream will restart, with conditions; European natural gas prices hovering near $50.