Anti Tries to Scare Maryland County re NGL Storage Hub Impacts
Ann Bristow, Professor Emeritus at Frostburg State University and resident of Garrett County, is once again trying to foment irrational fear of the fossil fuel industry. Bristow was one of the “experts” that kept fracking out of Garrett County (one of two Maryland counties with commercial shale deposits), harming its citizens economically. Now she’s trying to whip up opposition to a regional ethane storage hub that won’t even be located in Maryland.
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Pennsylvania antis from the Philadelphia area who don’t want pipelines running through their neighborhoods (NIMBY types) have beat the drums of war so loud and for so long, they’ve finally begun to intimidate the non-partisan, shouldn’t-be-intimated PA Public Utility Commission (PUC). The PUC last Thursday launched a “major review of its safety regulations for hazardous liquids pipelines” in response to pressure from Mariner East 2 pipeline foes. It’s sad to see a government body cowed by a few loudmouthed troublemakers.
So-called environmentalists in the Albany, NY area are fine with a 333-mile underground electric cable that will pass through the area to bring hydro power from Quebec to New York City, but they object to a 7-mile underground natural gas pipeline that will increase supplies of natgas to the region–because natgas is vile and filthy “fracked gas” and these so-called environmentalists have an irrational (certifiably nuts) aversion to using fossil fuels as an energy source. It truly boggles the mind. Will anyone be left in New York State in another 20 years?
There is a truly dreadful, jobs-killing piece of legislation in New York State that may get passed in the next few weeks. It’s called the Climate Community Protection Act (CCPA). The bill, if it becomes law, would mandate the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to eliminate all so-called greenhouse gas emissions from any major source in the state by 2050. The following manufacturing industries in the state would likely close and/or move out of the state: glass (say goodbye to Corning), steel, cement, auto, metal casting, food, pulp and paper, aluminum, plastics, ceramics and chemicals. Yeah, pretty much all of Upstate would close.
Shale driller Huntley & Huntley (H&H), headquartered in Monroeville (Allegheny County), PA, organized a private meeting last night in Plum, PA for “officials from local municipalities, the state Department of Environmental Protection and the oil and gas industry.” The meeting was an effort at good communication, so local officials know what is and is not allowed, and who regulates what, when it comes to shale drilling. Of course anti-drillers got wind of the meeting and pitched a fit until H&H opened up the meeting to let them attend.
In May MDN told you about a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that allows shale drilling to happen *anywhere* in a township, so long as such drilling satisfies standards to protect public health, safety and welfare (see 
Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City who owns 12 houses, a private jet and a helicopter and has a bigger “carbon footprint” than some small states, presumes to know more about how you should get your electric power than you do. Cause, you know, he’s just smarter than you. Bloomberg has partnered with two of the absolute worst of the leftist/Communistic “environmental” organizations on the planet–the odious Sierra Club and Earthjustice–spending $500 million to launch a new “Beyond Carbon” campaign–to deny you the right to buy electricity from either coal OR natural gas-fired plants.
A lawsuit brought by greedy lawyers (ab)using a group of 21 ignorant children against the United States for not doing enough about mythical man-made global warming is once again in the news. The lawsuit aims to force the end of using all fossil fuels in the United States, to address so called man-made global warming.
Three families who lived near a former drill site and frack wastewater impoundment in Washington County, PA sued Range Resources in May 2012 claiming the air they breathe and the water they drink had been contaminated by Range’s operations at the site (see 
Since 2013 so-called environmentalists have protested, agitated and lobbied to prevent the Cayuga Power Plant in Lansing (Ithaca suburb) from switching from burning coal to burning clean natural gas–because they irrationally hate fossil fuels (see 
We’ve said, for years, that it’s just fine to be a clueless idiot and protest pipelines, fracking, drilling, fossil fuels–whatever. BUT, protesting doesn’t give you the right to illegally block a legal activity, like building (or operating) a pipeline, drilling a shale well, etc. Irrational anti-fossil fuelers are trying to excuse their illegal, anarchist behavior by claiming it’s somehow free speech or freedom of expression. WRONG. And now, the federal government is in the process of revising its criminal guidelines to ensure such behavior sees jail time and stiff fines.
It’s hard enough for drillers to get permits town by town in Pennsylvania, where the standards are all different thanks to the seven selfish towns that appealed the Act 13 law passed in 2012 (see 
Maya van Rossum, who fancies herself as THE Delaware Riverkeeper, has her knickers in a twist. She’s just woken up to the fact that New Fortress Energy, which is building an LNG liquefying plant in northeastern Pennsylvania (see 
Last December MDN told you that even though NEXUS Pipeline, a $2.6 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that runs from Ohio into Michigan is built and has been fully online since November, the Coalition to Reroute NEXUS (CORN), along with the City of Oberlin, Ohio, filed yet another lawsuit (with the D.C. Court of Appeals) to nullify the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) original decision to approve the project (see 
Pennsylvania Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, and the anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, continue their tag-team effort to criminalize and humiliate Range Resources. Shapiro, a sleazy politician, is investigating so-called environmental “crimes” committed by shale companies in a bid to boost his chances of being the next nominee to run for governor (see