PA DEP Hits Shell Cracker with Emissions NOV, Antis Seek Shutdown
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) early last week to the Shell ethane cracker plant in Monaca (Beaver County), PA, now called the Shell Polymers Monaca facility, for the third time since it officially began operation last November. In a letter dated Feb. 13 (copy below), the DEP stated the facility violated rolling 12-month emission standards in both November and December. Shell faces fines of $25,000 per day for each day the facility exceeds emissions limits. In light of this most recent NOV, two anti-fossil energy groups have asked the DEP to immediately shut down the facility to stop extra air pollution in the region.
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A little over a month ago, MDN brought you the good news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved the Williams Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project, a plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see 
West Virginia Senate Bill (SB) 188 is aimed at making WV more competitive with its neighbors–Pennsylvania and Ohio–with respect to siting more gas-fired power plants in the state. We reported last week that the bill seemed to be on a fast track to a final vote in the House, after the Senate approved it by a wide margin (see 
Just over one year ago, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted to keep the Weymouth compressor, the final piece of the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project that was years in the making, up and running (see 
Pennsylvania State Rep. Martin Causer, Republican from Bradford (McKean County), PA, is introducing a new bill to prohibit PA municipalities from banning the installation and use of natural gas stoves and furnaces. “Pennsylvanians deserve better than to have their freedom restricted by an overly involved government that thinks it knows better than they do,” Causer wrote in a memorandum to his fellow House members, asking them to join him in co-sponsoring the bill. In our opinion, every single Republican member of the PA House should be listed as a co-sponsor of Causer’s “energy freedom” bill.
The difference between the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) and the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) is stark. The former is well-run and rational, the latter is disorganized and irrational. At least with respect to fracking. Over the weekend, the SRBC published a notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin to announce that during the month of January, the agency approved 38 requests for daily water use on shale well pads in the SRBC’s jurisdictional territory in Pennsylvania, totaling some 233.5 million gallons. Put another way, this is a handy list of where drilling will soon happen in northeastern PA.
The Barack Hussein Obama administration went crazy with over-regulation in many areas. One of them was to redefine “waters of the United States” (or WOTUS) as everything down to, no exaggeration, mud puddles. When Donald Trump took office, he set about to correct some of the insane abuses of the Obama era, including WOTUS. He finally got it fixed. However, the Bidenistas took up the cause once again. Radicals at the EPA announced a new rule in January aimed at re-regulating all waters, putting power over just about everything (including oil and gas drilling) into the federal government’s hands via WOTUS (see 
NATIONAL: North America drops rigs; Biden’s ’10 years more of oil’ is more dangerous energy ignorance; INTERNATIONAL: China taking control of LNG as global demand booms; ‘No excuse’ IEA tells energy firms as methane emissions rise; How Europe ditched Russian fossil fuels with spectacular speed; The overprivileged West’s delusion of ‘transitioning away from oil’; EU formally bans new ICE vehicles.