Obama’s “Signature” Climate Reg, Clean Power Plan, Finally Dead
We’ve written plenty about President Obama’s so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP), a plan to force electric generators to convert to using more “renewable” sources of energy and less fossil fuels (see Obama Stabs Natural Gas Electric Plants in Clean Power Plan). The Obama CPP would have outright assassinated coal powered generation, and wounded (but not quite killed) natural gas. It was Obama’s attempt at picking winners and losers in who and how we get our energy. Fortunately the Trump Administration neutered the CPP and Tuesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed Trump’s action and declared the CPP dead as a doornail.
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What appears to be an organized, ongoing effort to stop legal construction activity for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) continues in both Virginia and West Virginia. Out-of-state (paid) protesters chain themselves to equipment and block roads in a “death by a thousand cuts” approach to prevent the completion of the 85% completed MVP project. Is it time to bring racketeering charges against the groups and people behind these activities? We think it is.
Last week CNN inflicted a seven-hour “town hall” discussion with Democrat presidential candidates about so-called climate change (man-made global warming) on its handful of viewers. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson called it an 
Pennsylvania antis from the Philadelphia area who don’t want pipelines running through their neighborhoods (NIMBY types) beat the drums of war so loud and for so long, they finally began to intimidate the non-partisan, shouldn’t-be-intimated PA Public Utility Commission (PUC). In June the PUC launched a “major review of its safety regulations for hazardous liquids pipelines” in response to pressure from Mariner East 2 pipeline foes (see 
In what we would say is an unusual, very public rebuke of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the former chairperson of the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Utilities says that Cuomo is to blame for a near-emergency situation in New England during the winter of 2017/2018 when the region was within two days of a massive blackout due to lack of electricity. The lack of electricity is because New England doesn’t have enough natural gas to feed power plants during critical load periods.
To his credit (we don’t often heap praise on him), Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf toured a Mariner East 2 pipeline construction site in Chester County near Philadelphia last Thursday, along with some Democrat politicians, and told anti-pipeline residents “NO” to their faces when they asked him to shut down the Mariner East pipeline system. He was polite, but firm, telling them he disagrees with their position of the need to permanently shut down the Mariner pipelines. “Do a better job” with construction and impacts from the project? Sure, according to Wolf. Shut it all down permanently? NO.
Can it be possible that the shale industry and anti-shale environmentalists (those who irrationally espouse the end of using all fossil fuels) can actually agree on something? Turns out, we can! The something we agree on is opposition to PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to tax a single industry, shale drilling, $4.5 billion in order to use that money for Big Government programs.
We should have seen this one coming (but didn’t). Yesterday MDN told you that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) had revoked the right of the Beaver County Conservation District (BCCD) to issue and monitor permits for erosion and sediment control, two permits used in building both pipelines and drill pads (see 
In 2006 the Pennsylvania State Legislature passed a bill (signed into law) that protects certain information about pipelines from being divulged via open records requests. It’s all too easy for terrorists (foreign or domestic) to use that information to inflict pain and suffering, even death–or to stop the flows along those pipelines. Good law, good call. But now several PA House members from the Philadelphia area want to pass a new law that would repeal the 2006 law–all in the name of pipeline “transparency.”
North Carolina is going bonkers. The state Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ), under the direction of Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper, released a plan last week to tax carbon dioxide (get ready to hold your breath because you breathe out CO2!). The plan ultimately takes direct aim at limiting the use of natural gas by taxing it to death–Democrats’ favorite play to cater to the leftists in their base. The DEQ plan is certifiably nuts, but less nuts than that of NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo. If that’s any consolation.
There’s an issue that has been building up steam for the past year or two. We’ve commented on it peripherally on a number of occasions. There’s no mistaking the newest “in thing” for young (and old) liberals is to trash the production of plastic. Plastic straws are killing little fishies in the deep blue sea. Plastic bags are filling up our landfills and endangering Mom Earth. California (land of the strange) now has its sights set on banning all plastic bottles. Radical environmentalists are now advocating that we ban the production and manufacture of all plastic products!