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The Case Against “Quick Take” Eminent Domain for Pipelines
In March a group of Pennsylvania landowners from Lancaster County asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case in which they say they’ve been screwed over by Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, that the pipeline should not have had the right to use eminent domain to build the pipeline before the matter of compensation was fully adjudicated (see PA Landowners Beg US Supreme Court to Hear Atlantic Sunrise Case). Williams, via their Transco subsidiary, responded and asked the Supremes to toss the case entirely (see Williams Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Toss Atlantic Sunrise Case). Do Lancaster County landowners have a legitimate beef?
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Big Green groups continue to sue pipeline companies and their projects in an attempt to block any new pipeline anywhere from getting built–period. One of their favored angles of attack is to try and find loopholes in, or even overturn, the Natural Gas Act of 1938.
Andrew Cuomo has himself painted into a corner. In recent years he’s pandered to his radical/left environmental base by blocking natural gas pipelines. Another such project now must be decided, by May 16. Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project needs a water crossing permit from New York State. If Cuomo rejects the project, both Consolidated Edison and National Grid, the two utilities that supply New York City and its suburbs, including all of Long Island, with natural gas, have said they will slap a moratorium on all new gas customer hookups. Either way Andy is toast. Which way will he decide?
THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum, along with a couple of radicals from Lancaster County flying under the name Lancaster Against Pipelines (the Clatterbucks), hoped they could convince the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a case that a series of lower courts dismissed–a case that would shut down the now-operating Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline (see 
Middletown, NJ officials recently passed, unanimously, a resolution opposing the proposed construction of the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline, part of the Transco pipeline system. There are a number of components to NESE, but the key component, the heart of the project, is a new 23-mile pipeline from the shore of New Jersey into (on the bottom of) the Raritan Bay–running parallel to the existing Transco pipeline–before connecting to the Transco offshore. Comments by Middletown Mayor Tony Perry are instructive and provide us with a teachable moment.
Williams is planning to build two new compressor stations in eastern Pennsylvania as part of its Leidy South Project (see 
This stuff continues to make us angry. In March we told you that MacAllister Machinery Co. Inc. of Michigan used lawyers to serve landowners in Lancaster County, PA with “mechanic’s liens” making the landowners liable to pay money to MacAllister for work done on the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project (see 
Last Thursday, “more than 300” anti-fossil fuel nutters protested to “demand” that Gov. Cuomo block Williams’ proposed Northeast Supply Expansion (NESE) pipeline project. We have extensively covered NESE and the coming decision by Cuomo’s lapdogs at the Dept. of Environmental Conservation.
It’s no secret that upstream companies (drillers) like EQT are trimming head count and reducing annual spending. So it probably won’t come as a surprise that EQT has put 46,000 square feet (out of 250,000 sq. ft.) in its palatial headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh up for sublease. Meanwhile, in a contrasting bit of news, midstream (pipeline) company Williams has just renewed the lease for its big regional Pittsburgh headquarters at Park Place Corporate Center–a 112,481 sq. ft. building.
During the signing ceremony on Wednesday when President Trump signed two executive orders to make it harder for states to block new pipelines for political reasons, Trump revealed part of the motivation for the EOs when he said, “And also, in New York, they’re paying tremendous amounts of money more for energy to heat their homes because New York State blocked a permit to build the Constitution Pipeline.” So we ask the question, will Trump’s EO actually help get the Constitution built?
In addition to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) slapping down the New York DEC this week (see our lead story), on Wednesday the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals slapped down both New York and North Carolina regulators who tried to block three important Williams pipeline projects, all related to the mighty Transco Pipeline.
The Cuomo-corrupted New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is spitting and sputtering, “warning” the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that if they (FERC) decide to rule that NY took too long to approve the Williams Constitution Pipeline and now gives the project a go-ahead, the DEC intends to rain down all sorts of legal hell on the agency. Which tells us one thing: the DEC is VERY nervous that their power to block pipeline projects is about to be neutered.
Anti-fossil fuel radicals are making noises, threatening noises, about how they may react when and if (as seems likely) the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decides to overrule New York State and allow the Williams Constitution Pipeline to finally, after five years, get built.