Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County
Cabot Ends Lawsuit Settlement Talks, Prefers Trial in Dimock Case
In April 2017 Dimock Township (Susquehanna County, PA) resident Ray Kemble and lawyers from two different law firms filed a new lawsuit against Cabot Oil & Gas over claims of contaminated water from local fracking. Thing is, those claims were settled by Cabot with Kemble years earlier. Cabot said this was a renewed attempt to sully its good name and reputation and countersued Kemble and his lawyers for $5 million (see Cabot O&G Countersues Dimock Anti, Lawyers).
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Anti-fossil fuelers know no depths to which they won’t sink in efforts to block *any* new natural gas pipelines. Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) has state approval to build a new 12-inch, 12-mile pipeline near Louisville to supply gas to 62 homes and businesses that can’t connect to LG&E’s local natgas utility system. The local Bernheim Arboretum has resisted attempts to build across three-tenths of one percent (0.028%) of Arboretum land–along an existing cleared path where electric lines already go (see 
We make no apologies for being big Donald Trump supporters here at MDN. Trump is the only presidential candidate committed to fossil fuel energy. All of the Democrat candidates, including the last two left standing–crazy Bernie Sanders and sleepy/creepy Joe Biden–are committed to ending the use of fossil fuels. We spotted an article in the New York Times (fake news alert!) that compares the positions of Sanders and Biden with respect to global warming and the environment. There is a difference, but not much of one. Both Democrats want to end the use of fossil fuels. The only difference is in how quickly.
We’ve commented from time to time on municipalities (cities) that stupidly ban new home and business construction from installing and connecting to natural gas supplies. Berkeley, California comes to mind since they were the first to do so. The trend is catching on in cities where leftist radicals infest city councils. In a bid to shut this madness down before it spreads (it’s the intellectual equivalent of the coronavirus), the state of Arizona, which shares a border with California wackos, last month passed a new law that puts a ban on municipal gas bans. Good for Arizona! Now five more states–Missouri, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Mississippi–are looking to ban gas bans too.
Some 30 radical environmental groups (including ringleader Penn Future) is fearful their campaign to stop House Bill (HB) 1100 is failing. HB 1100 is aimed at attracting new petrochemical investments to the state. How do we know Big Green is fearful? Because the groups are attempting to gin up opposition to the bill by staging a faux protest rally on March 9 at the Capitol in Harrisburg.
For years anti-fossil fuel zealots have used and abused the word “fracking” and its derivatives to describe horizontal hydraulic fracturing, and more generically to describe the entire shale oil and gas industry (drilling, pipelines, etc.). Antis love to slip in phrases like “fracked gas” and refer to those who work in the industry as “frackers.” They call themselves “fracktivists.” It all sounds so naughty. We happen to love the word and we embrace it, to shove it right back in their faces (others in our industry do not like the word and sometimes chide us for using it). A couple of so-called researchers have coined a new fracking-related term: “fraccidents.”
Nick DeIuliis, CEO of CNX Resources, has about had it up to “here” with the haters. At a recent speech to the Pittsburgh Rotary Club and the Pittsburgh Business Exchange, DeIuliis unloaded on extremists (whom he called “haters”) targeting the shale and petrochemical industries. He made a strong case for fossil fuel energy. He’s also not a fan of the “carbon-shaming mob mentality” of some leftist fund managers who are pressuring investment firms to divest from fossil fuel companies. Way to go Nick!
There’s been a lot of hot air around the issue of fossil fuels in the current presidential campaign. Democrat candidates seem to be in a race to say the more outrageous thing about fossil fuels and the companies that extract and transport them. For example, Sen. “crazy” Bernie Sanders has called oil and natural gas executives criminals. Yeah, that’s right. Vice President “sleepy/creepy Uncle” Joe Biden wants to put oil and gas execs in jail! And Sen. Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren calls oil and gas execs corrupt. Really? This kind of trash talk comes from so-called leaders–people actively being considered to run the country? No thanks. The Western Energy Alliance took out a full-page ad in the New York Times yesterday to fight back. You just HAVE to see it…
It’s election (i.e. silly) season all year long, until November. One of the key issues shaping up to influence the presidential election this year is, yes, FRACKING. The term fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, has been bastardized to the point it now means (in the public’s mind) “fossil fuels.” All of the Democrat presidential hopefuls are in favor of severely limiting, or outright banning, fracking. By which they mean the production of new oil and natural gas from shale deposits. It is a losing platform on which to run–yet that’s what they’re doing. We spotted an article on the Forbes website that uses simple arithmetic to calculate the impact fracking has (so far) had on Americans.
The Pennsylvania Democrat Party is about to get politically fracked–i.e., underground explosions that create large fractures, breaking it apart. Ironically, the Dems are getting fracked over fracking. As we have been reporting, all of the Democrat presidential candidates have signed on to either severely limit, or outright ban, hydraulic fracturing. Some of the more extreme elements, like crazy Bernie Sanders, want all fracking banned within five years–on public AND private land (see 
The former Chester County District Attorney, Tom Hogan, is guilty of politicizing his office (we’d call it legal malpractice) by charging a couple of off-duty constables (peace officers) with a crime–just because they moonlighted by working as security guards to protect anti-pipeline nuts from hurting themselves at Mariner East 2 pipeline construction sites (see 
Is anyone shocked at the audacity of anti-fossil fuel groups like the Sierra Club to simply manufacture (make up, out of nothing) new “data” with wild claims of radioactivity in order to block a New York landfill from expanding to accept more PA drill cuttings from shale sites? We aren’t.
Mob rule is the opposite of the rule of law. Mob rule is what’s being advocated under the guise of “protest” in Brooklyn, NY where a mob of anti-fossil fuelers are attempting to block the final few feet of construction for a 6.8-mile natural gas pipeline stretching from Brownsville to North Brooklyn. Utility company National Grid, responsible for flowing more natural gas to *meet demand* (and not run out) is working to complete a new gas main pipeline–and a mob in Greenpoint is hell-bent on stopping it. Why? Because they believe in “global warming” and have an irrational hatred of fossil fuels, including natural gas.
Last Friday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking for an extra 45 days to revise an Endangered Species Act (ESA) review of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. Also from last week: anti-fossil fuelers (Big Green groups) virulently opposed to MVP (which is 90% built) continued to hound the project by pestering the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) over minor violations the DEQ found in construction activities from September to December. Big Green wants to know what the DEQ is going to “do” about the violations.
A Boston University professor has gone on a so-called “hunger strike” in his campaign against fossil fuels and a compressor station near Boston that will flow more of them. And you actually *pay* to send your kids to BU?