PA Anti Strategy: Weaponize Recent Court Ruling Against Shale Dev
It’s clear that radical environmentalists who (irrationally) oppose the use of fossil fuels believe the recent decision by Pennsylvania Supreme Court is a gift from Gaia (Mother Earth goddess). As MDN previously reported, last week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of Appeals, in a sharply divided 3-2 decision, sided with a virulent anti-drilling group, the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation, against the state in saying that any revenue generated from leasing and drilling on state-owned land MUST be used solely for conservation and the environment (see PA Supreme Court Hands Antis Partial Victory re State Land Drilling). However, denying the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DCNR) from funding itself with lease/royalty revenue was inconsequential, a distraction from the real aim. The decision, according to the radicals, further strengthens the state’s so-called Environmental Rights Amendment to the state constitution. What it means, in very practical terms, is that the antis now plan to use a decision ostensibly about how a single state agency gets its funding, to apply the philosophical underpinnings (the right to a clean environment) as a weapon against judges and the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), to force them to consider whether or not issuing a given permit for a project “harms” the “rights” of PA citizens to a “clean environment.” In other words, the radicals are weaponizing a court decision to use against the shale industry–and they’re signaling, via their sycophantic mouthpieces at StateImpact Pennsylvania, that’s exactly what they intend to do…
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Just when you thought you’ve seen how low some anti-pipeline fanatics will go, they surprise you and go even lower. Antis set up a fake graveyard with a half dozen authentic, 19th century tombstones, right next to a pipeline right of way for the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline in Lancaster County, PA. Williams is hypersensitive to ensure they don’t violate any “Native American” or other kinds of historic sites. So when they came across the fake graveyard, they thought it was real and proceeded as such, spending time and money to plan a route for construction that would protect the fake site. And antis, with full knowledge, lied to Williams’ people (not telling them is the same as lying in our book). And laughed their considerable derrieres off the entire time, wondering when those poor dunderheads at Williams would figure it out. Now Williams may have the last laugh, because what the antis did is fraud and prosecutable. So-called local Native Americans (i.e. Indians) were in on the “joke.” And now those Indian activists have the gall to say if Williams didn’t recognize something as fake, how will they recognize real Indian artifacts that need protecting? We ask a different question: Who will ever believe these so-called Native American activists again–when they are self-professed liars?…
In March 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) Connecticut Expansion project (see 
As they so often do, radical environmentalists are creating chaos and confusion–this time in Pennsylvania. As MDN reported, earlier this week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of Appeals, in a sharply divided 3-2 decision, sided with a virulent anti-drilling group, the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation, against the state in saying that any revenue generated from leasing and drilling on state-owned land MUST be used solely for conservation and the environment (see 
It’s kind of humorous when a small group of insane anti-fossil fuelers participate in a march that they call “Stop the Madness.” Kind of meta, dontcha think? An anti reporter from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tagged along (who could tell the difference?) to “report” on a group of “about 100 protesters from 11 organizations” who rallied and marched from one Marcellus event to another being held in Pittsburgh on Tuesday. The protesters, dressed in clothes made from petrochemicals, wearing sneakers made from petrochemicals, and holding signs made from petrochemicals (after arriving at the “rally” and “march” in fossil fuel-powered transportation), rallied outside of the Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction conference–to protest petrochemicals, and then marched across town to the convention center to protest fracking outside of the DUG (Developing Unconventional Gas) East event. The group was a mish mash of the usual suspects–hard left nutters who pop up again and again to grab a headline bashing fossil fuels, before scarpering home using the fossil fuels they just bashed, going to houses and apartments heated and cooled using fossil fuels. Typical…
It’s hard to overestimate the damage to the fossil fuel industry in general, and the natural gas industry in particular, from the propaganda film Gasland, created by Josh Fox. The movie is full of lies and misinformation, but it’s good entertainment and in a culture that disdains the use of logic and reason, someone else’s lies quickly become some unthinking people’s “truth.” Fox has repeatedly proven he’s a charlatan and liar. No one exposes his lies better than Phelim McAleer, a real filmmaker who made the counter-documentary 
In a sharply divided 3-2 decision (full copy below), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of Appeals has sided with a virulent anti-drilling group, the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation, against the state in saying that any revenue generated from leasing and drilling on state-owned land MUST be used solely for conservation and the environment. The state cannot treat, as former Gov. Ed “fast Eddie” Rendell did, revenue from oil and gas drilling on state land as money that can be used for any old cockamamie political reason. That is, the money cannot go into the black hole of the “general fund” in Harrisburg. The three justices who rendered the decision say the law is clear on intent–that money must be used for environmental purposes. Fine. Except the foundation on which they decided the case is PA’s so-called environmental rights amendment. Even though this case is about how money from drilling will get used (a fairly narrow ruling), already antis at PA Big Green groups like THE Delaware Riverkeeper claim they will use this decision and the environmental rights amendment to try and block drilling on state lands because it “violates” the state constitution. That’s where they ultimately want to take this. Block it on state lands first, then go for private land next…
A total of 31 anti-drilling, leftist (almost all Democrat) mayors, council members and county freeholders (not freeloaders, but freeholders) from a dozen New Jersey townships begged and pleaded with the NJ Department of Environmental Protection to kill the PennEast Pipeline project. The antis sent a letter to DEP Commissioner Robert Martin claiming PennEast will have “unacceptable” impacts in their towns if it gets built. We wonder, will they find it “unacceptable” to have their gas and electric turned off, because of lack of natural gas coming in via pipeline? It is yet another list of, frankly, nobodies who are desperately attempting to grab a headline from a sympathetic anti reporter (which they did, NJ.com), to try and create the impression that masses of people are against the project. Fortunately, it will fail…
You may recall our story about the daughter of a Huntingdon County, PA landowner, radicalized by Big Green groups (as evidenced by her association with well known protesters previously arrested), who took to a tree on her mom’s property in order to illegally stop crews working on tree clearing for the Mariner East 2 pipeline (see 
In June 2014, MDN told you about the Dominion New Market Project–a project that will build two new compressor plants and upgrade one other compressor station in upstate New York–to help flow more abundant, cheap and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from Pennsylvania (and beyond) into the northeast (see 
Duke Energy needs to replace an aging pipeline, built in the 1950s, near Cincinnati, OH–or some people in Cincy will have to go without natural gas (see 
A group of profoundly radical “environmental” organizations filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last Friday against the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection–for doing their job. Sierra Club, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Indian Creek Watershed Association, Appalachian Voices and Chesapeake Climate Action Network has sued the DEP because the department had the audacity to conduct a very thorough review, and then issue a stream and water-crossing permit (demanded under federal law) for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). MVP is a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project, which filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2015, is being built by EQT, NextEra Energy and several other partners. This is now SOP–standard operating procedure–for Big Green groups with deep pockets. Sue and keep suing in an attempt to slow and eventually kill off any project that remotely involves fossil fuels. Yes, they are RADICAL, they are EXTREME, waaaaaay outside the mainstream of American society. And they MUST BE STOPPED. When will someone launch weekly lawsuits against these Big Green organizations? Here’s the latest maddening development…
On Friday, Exxon Mobil took the gloves off and went after the out-of-control New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Last year Schneiderman decided he would try to shake down Exxon for billions of dollars, claiming the company wasn’t being honest with shareholders about the threat of man-made global warming, which doesn’t actually exist. He said Exxon should have done more to warn shareholders that they invest in a filthy, rotten, human-killing Big Oil company–a company whose stock will someday implode. We’ve covered Schneiderman’s witch hunt from the beginning (
THE Delaware Riverkeeper (i.e. Maya van Rossum) and a small group of anti-drilling parents from the Mars School District (“Martians”) in Butler County, PA, have just suffered a crushing defeat in their years-long battle to prevent Rex Energy from drilling wells “near” a local school. Backed by money and legal help from Philadelphia Big Green groups Delaware Riverkeeper and Clean Air Council, the Martians filed frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit. The effort is aimed at denying landowners in Middlesex Township revenue from legally permitted drilling. The lawsuits have cost the taxpayers of Middlesex Township over $80,000 in legal fees. Even amid the back and forth lawsuits, at least two of the wells were permitted and drilled by Rex Energy, despite the bleatings of the Martians (see