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Biden-McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal Includes Finishing MVP PDQ
Big news over the weekend. President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to a compromise deal to raise the debt ceiling–into the stratosphere. Part of the deal is a provision in the 99-page “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” called Section 324, which expedites the completion of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. MVP will flow 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus/Utica gas from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA. Needless to say, anti-fossil fuel nutters began howling at the moon and clawing at their faces upon hearing the MVP news.
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Today’s lead story shares the good news that Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is finally getting a literal “act of Congress” to force its completion (see Biden-McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal Includes Finishing MVP PDQ). One of the provisions in the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” (debt ceiling bill) removes jurisdiction to hear court cases brought against MVP away from the corrupt U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and gives it to the D.C. Circuit instead. Which may not be the panacea we were hoping for. On Friday, the D.C. Circuit ruled in a case concerning MVP that has the potential to delay the project further. So much for the D.C. Circuit being MVP’s savior…
Last Friday, Form Energy, a Boston-based firm building a utility-scale battery factory just across the Pennsylvania border in Weirton, West Virginia, held a groundbreaking ceremony on the site of a former steel plant. On hand for the ceremony were Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE), and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, from WV. We don’t care a fig about the battery factory. It was comments about a potential Appalachian hydrogen hub, made during interviews at the event, that caught our attention. Granholm all but guaranteed a hydrogen hub is coming to our region. Hello, $1 billion! Joe Manchin went even further and said, “I think West Virginia is going to be awarded a hydrogen hub.” What does Joe know that we don’t?
Olympus Energy wants to drill six wells on a single pad in rural Elizabeth Township, a borough in Allegheny County on the east bank of the Monongahela River. The pad would sit about 2,400 feet (nearly half a mile) away from Elizabeth Forward High School. Some of the parents of students, and some of the administration, pushed back against Olympus’ drilling plan, using the kiddies as an excuse (see 
In September 2019, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave its blessing to Eagle LNG to build a small LNG export facility project at a site on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida (see 
An indisputable fact is that Joe Biden’s presidency has done more to damage the fossil fuel industry than any other president, including Lord Obama (and that’s saying something). Biden has been the best friend of the environmental left, like the League of Conservation Voters, Oil Change, Climate Defiance, Sierra Club, and more. Yet when Biden compromises even a little (to get more), like allowing Mountain Valley Pipeline to get completed (currently 94% done), the enviro left goes bananas. Because of a few recent decisions by Biden to support fossil energy projects, Big Green groups are threatening “direct actions” like shutting down parts of the D.C. swamp.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: EQT donates $100,000 to upgrade Greene fairgrounds; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Cheniere Energy inks long-term LNG deal with Korean power firm; NATIONAL: Freedom is at stake this Memorial Day – we are at war again; Impact of coal- and gas-fired generation shifts on summer natgas prices.