Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide NY | Transco | Williams
Cuomo Rejection of NESE Pipe Pushes Fed 401 Cert “to the Extreme”
We recently brought you several stories about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s predictable (and foolhardy) rejection of the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project to pipe more natural gas to a desperate New York City and Long Island (see NY Gov. Cuomo Denies Permit for Williams NESE Pipeline to NYC and Economic Fallout from Cuomo’s Decision to Kill NESE Pipeline). We’ve located another unique perspective on Cuomo’s decision, this one looking at the shaky legal basis Cuomo used to reject the project.
Read More “Cuomo Rejection of NESE Pipe Pushes Fed 401 Cert “to the Extreme””
Two weeks ago MDN reported that a New Jersey state commission, the Pinelands Commission, which has a power to block a pipeline through 10 miles of “protected” scrub pines and swamp lands, is currently paralyzed in their efforts to roll back permission previously granted for the pipeline project under Republican Gov. Chris Christie (see 
You may think we’re being hyperbolic when we say this (but we’re not): You’re being lied to, on a regular basis, by so-called mainstream news organizations. Like the New York Times. Like the Washington Post. Like CNN. Like…the UK Guardian, a major news rag from across the pond. The editor of the Guardian has instructed “reporters” at the newspaper to go full-bore propaganda when “reporting” on global warming. Its scary. It’s Joseph Goebbels-type stuff. Our friend Mark Mathis at the Clear Energy Alliance has a new video to explain…
Range Resources released its first-ever Corporate Sustainability Report earlier this week. The report reviews Range’s accomplishments at reducing so-called greenhouse gases (methane emissions) over the past 10 years. However, the big news contained in the report is that Range is committing to the goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions from its operations. Someday. In the future. The report and the goal of zero emissions comes in response to pressure last year from a wacko leftist group that floated a shareholder resolution that almost passed.
Last November the judges in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court issued a ruling in favor of Penn Township (Westmoreland County) granting “special exception” permits to Apex Energy, allowing them to drill four shale wells (see 
Anti-fossil fuel kooks in Massachusetts are desperate to block a federally (and state) approved compressor station from getting built in Weymouth, MA. Antis have one remaining, way-outside chance of blocking the project: Bully the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) into reversing the permit it has already issued for the project.
Yet another attack on the shale industry by two Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “reporters” (propagandists) who have made a career of unfairly attacking shale–Don Hopey and David Templeton. This latest smear job makes the claim that leachate coming from a landfill piped to a municipal wastewater treatment facility is “contaminated” with all sorts of nasty chemicals (what the heck do you think is in leachate, anyway?!). The claim is the chemicals in the leachate are present because of drillers dumping leftover rock and dirt that comes out of the ground when drilling new holes for shale wells into the landfill.
Hey New York Islanders NHL team–you’re screwed. No new stadium because your governor, Andrew Cuomo has just directed his corrupt Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to deny a permit to build the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) natural gas pipeline, a pipeline your new stadium needs or won’t get built. You can thank Andy for blowing your billion dollar project. Oh, and residents in NYC’s tenement buildings who won’t have heat next winter because their landlords are being forced by the city to dump fuel oil and now have nothing to switch to? They can thank Andy too, as they huddle with their winter coats on in their freezing apartments.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has just upheld a lower court opinion that allows shale drilling to happen *anywhere* in a township, so long as such drilling satisfies standards to protect public health, safety and welfare. This is the end of the road for a lawsuit funded by Big Green that began in 2015 in Westmoreland County, PA.
You know who anti-vaxxers are, right? The parents who won’t give their children vaccines because they fear the vaccines may give their kids autism or allergies. Because of this anti-vaxxer movement, there’s been a recent resurgence in measles–particularly in New York City. A group calling themselves Physicians for Social Responsibility is trotting out scare tactics to oppose a pipeline compressor station in Weymouth, Massachusetts. One writer calls them the anti-vaxxers of energy. We love it!
Several so-called environmental groups, including one calling itself the Sane Energy Project, converged on Albany, NY yesterday to protest two new natural gas pipeline projects. How many committed, dedicated, climate warriors showed up from these “several” groups? Thousands? Hundreds? How about two dozen. Nobody would have noticed the protest except sycophantic media outlets arrived to plaster the event all over the airwaves (and newsprint). Rather disheartening is that an 11-year-old boy who’s been brainwashed was among the protesters. Of course the media loved it.
Antis pinned their hopes that they could get the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval for Dominion to build a couple of compressor stations in upstate New York, thereby forcing FERC to consider mythical man-made global warming in ALL pipeline decisions. The case had the makings of being a “landmark” case. Yesterday antis lost their landmark case when the court ruled the party bringing the lawsuit, Otsego 2000, didn’t have standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place.
Hey Westchester County, NY: You have a model to look at for your own moratorium on (blocking of) new natural gas customers. It’s located upstate, in Lansing, NY, just outside of college town Ithaca. The local utility (NYSEG) wanted to build a short pipeline in 2017 to supply new customers with natgas, but was blocked by crazies who irrationally hate fossil fuels (see 
Two Democrat New York State legislators, Senator Jen Metzger and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, are floating parallel bills that would outright ban any new natural gas-fired electric plants or natural gas pipelines in the state. Really bizarre stuff. They’re calling this lunacy “Freedom from Fossil Fuels.” Want to run a new gas pipeline from the local utility to a new housing development or commercial business park? Forget it. No new gas customer hookups *anywhere* in the state–not just in Westchester County (see 
A radical Pennsylvania environmental group called PennEnvironment is pushing a media narrative that a “collection of 88 Republican and Democratic Pennsylvania state legislators” have joined together to introduce and endorse a truly insane plan that would require all (as in 100%) of electricity generated in the Keystone State to come from so-called renewables by 2050–just 30 years from now. It will NEVER happen, but that’s beside the point. Our point is that one named Republican is part of this “bipartisan collection” of 88 leftists. The lone Republican is PA State Sen. Tom Killion from the Philadelphia area.
Huntingdon County, PA landowner Ellen Gerhart, adamantly opposed to the Mariner East 2 pipeline being constructed across her land, tried to block construction on her property. She had her day in court last August and was found guilty of violating a judge’s previous order to stop interfering with construction (see