Lancaster Nuns Demand “Religious Freedom” Trial re Pipeline
A group of radicalized Catholic nuns whom we refer to as Sisters of the Corn are demanding a trial on the grounds of “religious freedom” in an effort to block Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline from crossing their land in Lancaster County, PA. The order of nuns, called Adorers of the Blood of Christ, have tried several strategies to derail Atlantic Sunrise. One of stunts they pulled, in league with a radical Big Green group, is to stick a few wooden park benches in the middle of a corn field that they own (leased to a local farmer), calling it a “chapel” (see Catholic Nuns Use Radicals to Build Chapel in Path of PA Pipeline). Which is why MDN dubbed them “Sisters of the Corn.” The heck of it is that the Sisters use natural gas to heat an old folks home they operate at the same address! Talk about religious hypocrisy. The Sisters used the chapel-in-the-corn as an excuse to sue the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) over their approval of Atlantic Sunrise on the grounds that running the pipeline through their corn field violates their religious freedom (see Lancaster Nuns Sue FERC to Stop Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline). A federal judge in Reading, PA dismissed the frivolous lawsuit in September (see Fed Judge Tosses Lancaster Nuns’ Freedom of Religion Lawsuit re ASP). The Sisters, using Big Green lawyers, have just appealed the dismissal, hoping they can find a liberal judge somewhere, anywhere, to hear the case…
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NEXUS Pipeline, a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada, is now under construction. NEXUS got final approval for the project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in August, the first major pipeline to get approved following a newly restored quorum at FERC (see 
Big Green insanity continues at the so-called Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation (PEDF). The only thing they “defend” is their own twisted philosophy of trying to gouge out the eyes of the oil and gas industry in PA–even at the expense of de-funding their own beloved PA Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources. Last June, the PEDF won a case at the PA Supreme Court by the skin of their teeth (see 
This is a bitter and sad day. The five Commissioners of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released a decision yesterday (copy below) that FERC will not overrule an illegal decision by the corrupt Cuomo Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to block construction of the Constitution Pipeline (which FERC approved in 2014). Is this truly “lights out” for the Constitution? It would seem so. Cuomo’s DEC took more than two years to evaluate and eventually reject the Constitution Pipeline–a $683 million, 124-mile pipeline from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY to move Marcellus gas into NY and New England (see 
The dunderhead leaders of Monroeville, PA (Allegheny County, suburb of Pittsburgh) are at it again, acting hostile toward the shale industry, attempting to stymie any kind of shale activity within its borders. In September, Monroeville Council voted to enact a super-restrictive seismic testing ordinance (see 
Last June, radical anti-drillers from the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation (PEDF) won a case at the PA Supreme Court by the skin of their teeth (see 
In the end, even the ultra-liberal editors of the Boston Globe couldn’t ignore and deny reality–the reality that their own favorite sons and daughters are to blame for sky high energy prices and dirtier air, because they’ve fought against new natural gas pipelines. We’ve been blowing the horn that New England is getting hosed on energy prices, paying the highest average prices in the world for natural gas, because of their stubborn refusal to allow new Marcellus gas pipelines into the region (see 
It’s always a shame–in fact it grieves us–to see once-great Christian denominations succumb to a worldly rather than spiritual purpose and mission. It’s sad to see the modern day version of a golden calf erected in place of God. It’s happened again–this time with the Presbyterian denomination in Pittsburgh. An “umbrella group for 140 Presbyterian churches” in Allegheny County are calling on Shell to stop construction of their $6 billion ethane cracker plant project about 25 miles from Pittsburgh. That’s right–just stop now, throwing thousands of people out of work (not very Christ-like) and throwing away the $1 billion+ Shell has already spent on the fully vetted, fully permitted, fully discussed (for years) project. Why do the Presbyterians want work on the cracker plant stopped? Because the plant will produce “plastic products that have been linked to the death of animals and the diminishment of fragile natural habitats.” Yep. The Presbyterians are now anti-plastic. The very keyboard they typed up their tripe on is, of course, plastic. As was the computer and monitor they used, the chair they sat in, the clothes on their bodies and sneakers on their feet–all come from the plastics the Shell cracker plant will produce. Just for icing on the global warming cake, the Presbyterians are also demanding their denomination divest any of their considerable investments from companies remotely related to the fossil fuel industry. It seems that the golden calf of global warming has now replaced God in the Pittsburgh Presbyterian denomination. And yes, we do grieve over that…
In April 2017, MDN brought you the news that Columbia Pipeline (now owned by TransCanada) had filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build a 3.5 mile, 8-inch pipeline that will carry natural gas from Pennsylvania to connect the Mountaineer Gas system in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia with the Columbia Gas Pipeline in Pennsylvania (see 
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is clinically insane. It’s time to put him in a straitjacket and prevent him from doing any more damage to a once-great city. de Blasio is using city resources to sue five oil companies, blaming them for “climate change”–the hoax that mankind is causing the earth to warm at an apocalyptic rate. The theory behind global warming is that burning fossil fuels (extracted by the five companies) releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere where the CO2 then acts like a canopy over the earth, trapping in heat from the sun, causing the earth to warm. And, as the theory goes, Mom Earth is warming up to such a degree that it will “soon” (any year now) kill plants, animals, mankind–all living things. All sorts of ills are laid at the feet of so-called global warming, now called “climate change”, including earthquakes, major storms, hurricanes, pestilence, racism. No, we’re not exaggerating. EVERYTHING is blamed on global warming. Even the record cold temperatures that we’ve experienced in the northeast are blamed on global warming! Wait–how can that be? How can a canopy effect trapping heat cause COLDER temps? Obviously it can’t–but these people will believe anything. Yes, CLINICALLY INSANE. But maybe not totally insane, because at its root, de Blasio’s move is not *really* about global warming and preserving the planet–it’s about an avowed socialist (de Blasio admits his perverse political leanings) attempting to steal money from those who earn it, in order to redistribute it to people who don’t earn it–people who will keep voting de Blasio into office in response to his political bribery. de Blasio has also instructed the city to divest its pension funds from any company that remotely has anything to do with fossil fuels. Now that IS insane!…
We don’t know how many times we have to keep ringing the bell–this is a five-alarm situation! Wake up! A group of Democrats elected to the Jessup, PA Borough Council (Scranton suburb) are actively trying to block the completion of the state’s largest natural gas-fired electric generating plant–the first phase of which will be ready to go online in a little over a month. A bunch of ninny nanny antis didn’t like that they couldn’t stop the project, so they used money and help from Big Green groups last November to launch successful campaigns to defeat incumbent Council members who voted to authorize the Lackawanna Energy Center to be built by Invenergy (see 
Tom Linzey, the attorney who founded and runs the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), has just been sanctioned by Federal Judge Susan Paradise Baxter and ordered to pay $52,000 to Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) for his “bad faith” in continuing to press legal arguments on behalf of Grant Township (Indiana County, PA)–legal arguments that say the people of Grant have rights they actually don’t have. Linzey has continued to claim rights for the citizens of Grant that have no legal basis and have been discredited in court. Not only that, but Judge Baxter also referred the matter to the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court with a request that they review Linzey’s actions with an eye to imposing more punishments against him. We’ve previously reported on the story of two Pennsylvania towns that were either hoodwinked, or perhaps willing led astray, by the radical CELDF into passing (now overturned) bans on fracking and injection wells in their towns–Highland Twp (Elk County) and Grant Twp (Indiana County). The two townships thought they would do an end-run around the state’s authority to issue permits for two injection wells–one in each township, by re-incorporating under so-called home rule charters. The towns essentially declared themselves independent of the state for a variety of matters, including oil and gas permits, which PA state law clearly says is a function of ONLY the state Dept. of Environmental Protection. In March, the DEP issued final permits for the injection wells AND sued each town to get those portions of their home rule charters, dealing with oil and gas, overturned (see 
Just yesterday MDN warned you about a group of antis who had seized political control in the Pennsylvania borough of Jessup, where Invenergy is nearing completion of the state’s largest natural gas-fired electric generating plant (see 
Vapid Hollywood stars and starlettes are always amusing. They often display their total ignorance in very public ways. Thing is, they’re stupid and they don’t even know it. They fall prey to their own publicity, thinking that because millions of people know who they are and love them (for their acting abilities), that gives them above average intelligence. The latest Hollywood dumb dumb to make a fool of herself is Jodie Foster. In a recent interview, Foster trash-talked the current trend of big budget superhero movies. She calls them the cinematic equivalent of fracking. Foster doesn’t even know what fracking is, or that the clothes she wore while uttering such inanities are the result of fracking. Or that the plastic microphone she spoke into was created as a result of fracking. Or that the jets she flies on, the Hollywood mansion she lives in, etc. etc. are all a result of fracking. What a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance is Jodie Foster…
It’s been a long road, but we’re finally close to startup for the first phase of what will be Pennsylvania’s largest gas-fired electric generating plant near Scranton, PA. The Invenergy plant, dubbed the Lackawanna Energy Center (located in the community of Jessup), will produce 1,480 megawatts of electricity when it’s fully built and running. Construction crews are hard at work in frigid temperatures, working to complete the first of three combined-cycle generator units. The work is 80% done on the first unit and on track to be completed by February. The plant is certainly having an impact on locals–both good and bad. On the bad side, we previously reported that antis in the Jessup community exacted their revenge on local political leaders for approving the plant by removing them from office (see