Anti-Gas PennFuture VP Heading to Shapiro DEP as Policy Director
There is a revolving door in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, between PennFuture and Democrat governors. Pat McDonnell, the former Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), charged with overseeing shale drilling in the state, was a closet radical working against the shale industry in the Gov. Tom Wolf administration. How do we know? As soon as he left the DEP last year, McDonnell became president of the uber-left, anti-shale PennFuture organization (see Former PA DEP Sec. Pat McDonnell New CEO of Anti-Shale Group). McDonnell now routinely criticizes the shale industry in the state. With a new Democrat administration in Harrisburg (Josh Shapiro, Governor, and Rich Negrin, DEP Secretary), PennFuture is sending one of its own, Ezra Thrush (VP of Government Affairs and chief lobbyist), over to the DEP to become the new Policy Director at the agency. The politically incestuous door just keeps revolving…
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Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on developing Marcellus Shale wells in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon typically does not do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company typically does the drilling. Epsilon issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2022 update last week. The company’s net gas production was 2.49 Bcf (billion cubic feet) in total, not per day, during 4Q22. That number is down 3% from 2.58 Bcf in 3Q21. Epsilon generated revenues of $15.2 million for 4Q22, compared to $13.8 million in 4Q21–up 10%.
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA is 94% complete (has been for two years) but sits idle, waiting for the other 6% to be completed so it can start up and begin to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules to the southeastern U.S. Lawsuits funded by Big Green groups (with foreign connections) have blocked the completion of the project…for YEARS. It would be fair to say the project is currently in a stalemate with Big Green radicals, who somehow have coopted the help of three Democrat judges who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Stalemates don’t go on forever. One way or the other, this situation will get resolved–likely this year. There are four potential outcomes for the stalled MVP project, a project critical to the future of the Marcellus/Utica.
An environmental group purporting to be run by political conservatives, calling itself Conservatives For Responsible Stewardship (CRS), is pushing for Pennsylvania to adopt the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)–an obscene carbon tax that will kill the Marcellus shale industry in the state. In what has to be the ultimate example of chutzpah, the president of CRS, Dave Jenkins, argues in a column appearing in the Erie Times-News, that RGGI is (don’t laugh) a “market-based program” and the type of thing old Ron Reagan would have liked. HOGWASH!
We live and work in Upstate New York State (sad to say). It is our birthplace, and our families live here. However, New York has fallen. We are overwhelmed with Democrat socialists who don’t care about traditional American values like freedom. The best illustration of this is our newly-elected Governor, Kathy Hochul. She not only wants to ban natural gas hookups for new homes and businesses across the entire state, she wants to force all EXISTING homes and businesses to give up using natural gas (and fuel oil, and coal, and wood) as well. It’s certifiably insane. Yet that’s how the Democrat socialist mind works. Fortunately, there are at least a few Dems left willing to push back on some of this insanity. Where do plans stand to ban natgas in the Empire State?
Last year MDN told you about an interesting development for an LNG export project in Canada we’ve tracked for years. Bear Head LNG in Nova Scotia was sold to Houston-based Buckeye Partners for an undisclosed sum (see 
NATIONAL: New poll shows strong support for HR 1 Lower Energy Costs Act; Oil jumps as sentiment improves; Science shows natgas stoves are not a hazard to indoor air quality; Nat-gas prices plunge on ample inventories and robust output; INTERNATIONAL: Russia diesel exports heading for record; Energy agency chief warns transition to renewables is way off track.