PennEast: The Long, Careful, Deliberate Road to Pipeline Approval
The latest theme/meme being pedaled by groups like THE Delaware Riverkeeper (Maya van Rossum) and other anti-fossil fuel groups is that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is just a big ole rubber stamp for Big Oil and Big Gas. FERC, they say, never met a pipeline project they didn’t approve. FERC is in the back pocket of the fossil fuel industry. Yada yada yada. Some of the crazier of the crazies took to attending open FERC meetings in Washington, DC and disrupting those meetings (see FERC Clears the Room at DC HQ After Riff Raff Start Mouthing Off). Once they were banned from attending, they began to illegally block entrance to the building (see 24 Anti-Drilling Protesters Arrested by Homeland Security in DC). FERC has been made a kindergartenish bogyman by those who oppose pipelines. To counter some of the nonsense pedaled by these groups (and their willing accomplices in the media), PennEast Pipeline recently published an article to set the record straight. FERC doesn’t simply rubber stamp a pipeline application like PennEast’s–a pipeline proposed to run from Wilkes-Barre, PA to Trenton, NJ. PennEast faces a “gauntlet of approvals”–including 11 federal, state and local agencies that must approve thousands of pages of plans, much of it stringent safety requirements. Approving a pipeline is an intense, detailed, and LONG process in which no stone is left unturned. There is no rubber stamp except in the childish minds of irrational anti-fossil fuelers…
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THE Delaware Riverkeeper is running a scam on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). By all accounts it is a legal scam–but a scam nonetheless. FERC has a process known as a 
If landowners along the route of the PennEast Pipeline don’t sign a lease with the company, PennEast says they will be forced to (and will) use eminent domain to gain lease rights. The PennEast, as a reminder, is a proposed pipeline costing $1 billion that will run from Luzerne County, PA (near Wilkes-Barre) all the way to Mercer County, NJ (just outside of Trenton), flowing 1 billion cubic feet of clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas each and every day. Landowners along the pipeline’s route will still own the land, but there will be restrictions–you can’t erect a building over top of a pipeline, for example. PennEast looks at eminent domain as an absolute last resort. However, according to the radicals at the PA Sierra Club who are opposing the pipeline, around two-thirds of the landowners along the pipeline’s route have not yet signed a lease to allow the pipeline across their land. PennEast recently filed their official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
Perhaps we now know the real reason why a group of anti-fossil fuel protesters decided to abandon their protest at the headquarters of PennEast Pipeline’s main sponsor, UGI. MDN told you yesterday how mainstream media in the New Jersey market covered a “massive” protest (of 35 people) who showed up at the Statehouse in Trenton during the day–with obviously nothing better to do–to protest against the PennEast Pipeline (see 
Some 35 anti-fossil fuel wackos, apparently with no jobs, show up during a slow news day at the Statehouse in Trenton, NJ to protest the PennEast Pipeline and news outlets report it as a major story, implying there’s a huge movement against the pipeline. What about the 366,500+ residents who also live in Mercer County and who aren’t opposed to the PennEast and who didn’t turn out to protest it? Is that worth a story? Apparently not. Of course this tiny protest wasn’t spontaneous–it was organized, planned, hyped and paid for by nutty Sierra Clubbers and THE Delaware Riverkeeper (Maya van Rossum)…
Party time! Yesterday PennEast Pipeline filed their full, official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to commence building their $1 billion, 118-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline that will deliver approximately 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus gas fields of northeastern PA to locations in southeastern PA and across the border to Trenton, NJ. The long-term benefits to the pipeline are many–lower natural gas and electricity costs for millions of consumers. In addition, during construction the pipeline will generate an estimated $1.6 billion of economic impact during design and construction alone, supporting approximately 12,160 jobs and an associated $740 million in wages. This is good news for all Pennsylvanians and New Jerseyites. Of course anti-fossil fuel nutters also issued an angry press release claiming the PennEast Pipeline will do “irreparable harm” if built…
PennEast Pipeline, the $1 billion, 118-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline that will deliver 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania (in Luzerne County) to southeastern PA and New Jersey (terminating in Mercer County, NJ), has just announced another $50,000 of community grants, bringing the grand total of such grants up to $240,000–so far. The organizations receiving the grants are eminently worthy–mostly fire departments and EMS departments located in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey…