Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel

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    Environmental Radicals: The Gangsters Among Us

    Jack Rafuse
    Dr. Jack Rafuse

    Dr. Jack Rafuse is a former White House energy adviser and current principal of the Rafuse Organization. He advises government agencies, policy centers, businesses and associations on energy, trade, sanctions, national security issues and their interrelationships. Yeah, he’s a really smart guy who knows a LOT about energy. He’s forgotten more about energy that we’ll ever know! In a recent column published in Ohio Gas & Oil Magazine Rafuse doesn’t beat around the bush. He calls the organized protests we’ve been seeing from radical Big Green groups like 350.org exactly what it is: “Gangsterism paid for by billionaires.” Rafuse points out the silly, empty-headed protesters are nothing more than useful idiots for big money bullies behind them–out for a thrill, paid for by someone else. Thing is, there are very real and tragic consequences to their actions that affect all of us…
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    Enviro Gangsters Arrested in Vermont for Stopping Pipeline Work

    Make Him an Offer He Can't RefuseFive more wackos were recently arrested in Vermont, chaining themselves to a short pipeline being built to deliver more clean-burning natural gas. The so-called “protesters” (whom we will now refer to as enviro gangsters, see today’s companion story) endangered themselves, pipeline workers and emergency personnel who had to extricate them. Keep a sharp eye out. When these kind of nutters wake up and understand their tactics aren’t working, they sometimes tip over into eco-terrorism. We’ve seen it before…
    Read More “Enviro Gangsters Arrested in Vermont for Stopping Pipeline Work”

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    PA Dems Eating Their Own – Turn on Gov. Wolf over Quigley Firing

    Greg Vitali
    PA State Rep. Greg Vitali – Dem

    Pennsylvania State Rep. Greg Vitali, a far-left Democrat from the Philadelphia area, is attacking his own governor, the most liberal governor in the U.S., Tom Wolf (according to InsideGov), for not being liberal enough when it comes to the environment. Vitali staged a press conference yesterday and essentially announced open warfare on Wolf. Vitali is still PO’d (personally offended) over the firing of Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary John Quigley (see Smoking Gun: Copy of the Email that Got John Quigley Fired). You may recall that Quigley was fired not for using a profanity-laced email to his Big Green friends in the radical environmental movement–but because he used a private email account to send the email, unethical in the extreme, and perhaps illegal (we hope someone is investigating). But sycophantic reporters refuse to focus on the true reason for Quigley’s firing–his off-the-reservation actions–and instead attempt to prop him up and say “he was too effective.” That’s the coordinated storyline being pedaled by lefties like Vitali. After the bombshell “resignation” announcement the Dems, including Jan Jarrett, tried to blame Democrat Sen. John Yudichak from Luzerne County, PA for Quigley’s firing (see PA Radical Enviros Blame Democrat Senator for Quigley Firing). Dems love to blame-shift. Trying to hang Quigley’s sins on Yudichak went nowhere fast, so the Dems are now turning on Wolf himself. The Dems are eating their own. Love it!…
    Read More “PA Dems Eating Their Own – Turn on Gov. Wolf over Quigley Firing”

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    NY AG Attempts to Cover Up His Collusion with Big Green Groups

    Eric-Schneiderman.jpg
    NY AG Eric Schneiderman – the man who is hiding something

    It’s A.O.K. for the out-of-control Attorney General from New York, Eric Schneiderman, to go fishing and request all sorts of internal documents and communications from Exxon Mobil in his witch hunt to persecute (not prosecute) the oil giant because they don’t believe strongly enough as he does in the fairy tale of man-made global warming. Schneiderman and his cronies in other states are trying to shake down Exxon in a massive scheme, claiming the company “knew” mankind is causing global warming by burning fossil fuels that Exxon extracts from the ground (see Climate Change Hucksters, Incl. NY AG & Al Gore, Threaten O&G and Rise of the New (Environmental) Nazis – Free Speech Under Attack). But when the U.S. Congress tells Scheiderman it wants HIS internal communication documents to see how he is colluding with Big Green groups who are prodding him along in his witch hunt efforts, Scheiderman clams up and claims Congress has no right to go fishing in HIS communications pond. Hmmm. A tad bit hypocritical, no?…
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    PennEast Opponents Complain They’ve Been Outsmarted by UGI

    hypocrite.jpgIt’s always fun to point out just how hypocritical Big Green groups, like the Sierra Clubbers, actually are. The Sierra Club in New Jersey is all up in arms that utility company UGI has hired a former member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Pamela Witmer, as vice president of government affairs. MDN was the first source to tell you the importance of her hiring, i.e. to help get the PennEast Pipeline approved (see UGI Hires PA PUC Commissioner in Brilliant Move for PennEast Pipe). The Sierra Club is “blasting” Witmer’s hire as “exactly what’s wrong with government and the incestuous relationship between utilities and corporations.” This is delicious. We will take you chapter and verse through two top Democrats in PA that have moved in and out, back and forth, between government jobs and jobs at Big Green organizations and corporations–Katie McGinty and John Hanger. The idiots at the Sierra Club make it too easy to point out their raging hypocrisy…
    Read More “PennEast Opponents Complain They’ve Been Outsmarted by UGI”

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    PennFuture Bullies PA Town over Lack of Fracking Ordinance

    PennFutureIn May 2015 MDN reported that after more than two years of acrimony and lawsuits between Range Resources and Mt. Pleasant (Washington County), PA., Range agreed to close four freshwater ponds (called “impoundments,” not to be confused with wastewater impoundments) the company was using to drill wells in nearby non-Mt. Pleasant locations (see Range Capitulates, Closing 4 Freshwater Ponds in Mt. Pleasant, PA). Mt. Pleasant is one of the original seven selfish towns that sued PA to overturn portions of the Act 13 oil and gas law. They won. Sooner or later a company can take a hint that a township is anti-business, so Range left town. Mt. Pleasant never followed up their victory in 2013 to fix a “hole” in their zoning ordinances. Not that it makes a whole lot of difference. MDN notices two permits issued in Mt. Pleasant Township in early 2015, and nothing since then, according to our Databook series. But the radicals at PennFuture have noticed. Even with little-to-no drilling, PennFuture is threatening to sue Mt. Pleasant unless they adopt far more restrictive ordinances on shale drilling in the town. Which points out PennFuture’s hypocrisy. It’s OK for a town to pass really restrictive zoning laws, but if the town chooses to not pass such laws, which is allowable under the Act 13 court case decision, that’s not OK by PennFuture. The door only swings one way for the radicals of PennFuture…
    Read More “PennFuture Bullies PA Town over Lack of Fracking Ordinance”

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    Good News for Marcellus: New Brunswick Commits Fracking Suicide

    New Brunswick, Canada
    Click for larger version

    New Brunswick is a Canadian province that shares a border with the U.S. state of Maine. Since 2014 the brainiacs who run the province of New Brunswick have had a fracking moratorium in place–similar to what the State of New York had. Yep, you can see where this one is going. Last week those same brainiacs announced that the fracking moratorium in New Brunswick will go on “indefinitely.” Meaning it’s a ban, not a moratorium. The Canadian’s stupidity is a gift to the Marcellus/Utica because New Brunswick also shares a border with Nova Scotia and there are several LNG (liquefied natural gas) export facilities actively being planned. Those facilities will not get their gas from Nova Scotia or (now) from New Brunswick. The place those facilities will have to get their gas from is the Marcellus/Utica. So thanks, Canada!…
    Read More “Good News for Marcellus: New Brunswick Commits Fracking Suicide”

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    Radical Enviro Groups Demand BLM Stop Leasing in OH Wayne NF

    Wayne National Forest
    Wayne National Forest – click for larger version

    Yet another mindless, useless and scientifically wrong letter has been sent to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) by a group of radical environmental organizations to ask (demand, really) that the BLM halt its plans to allow fracking to take place in the Wayne National Forest (WNF). Nowhere in the letter sent by the Sierra Clubbers, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Ohio Environmental Council and Friends of the Earth does it mention that 60% of the land in WNF is PRIVATELY OWNED. And that the BLM has, for nearly 10 years now, blocked those private rights owners from profiting from their land. Recently the BLM took another baby step on the way to allowing fracking in WNF, which is what has set off the crazies and precipitated this latest factually incorrect letter…
    Read More “Radical Enviro Groups Demand BLM Stop Leasing in OH Wayne NF”

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    $500K Lawsuit Against Litigious Martians Tossed by County Judge

    My Favorite MartianMDN previously reported on the injustice happening in Bulter County, PA where a handful of anti-drilling parents from the Mars School District (“Martians”), backed by money from Philadelphia Big Green groups Delaware Riverkeeper and Clean Air Council, have filed frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit. The effort is aimed at denying landowners in Middlesex Township revenue from legally permitted drilling. The actions by these radicalized parents have cost the taxpayers of Middlesex Township over $80,000 in legal fees. Landowners with leases got together and sued the radicals to stop this miscarriage of justice (see Shoe Now on Other Foot: Landowners Sue Martian Anti-Drillers). The lawsuit proceeded with the radicals claiming they should be able to sue, but not be sued (see Litigious Martians Cry Like Babies Over $500K Lawsuit Against Them). Unfortunately a county judge has agreed with the Big Money groups from Philly and has tossed the lawsuit against them–with prejudice. Meaning it can’t be re-filed for another go. So much for “justice” when it comes to radical Martians…
    Read More “$500K Lawsuit Against Litigious Martians Tossed by County Judge”

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    Cove Point Protester Sentenced to Jail, Lied About Police Assault

    jail cellWhen did it become “vindictive” to prosecute criminals? That’s what we’re supposed to believe about the prosecution of a radicalized, anti-fossil fuel environmentalist who was just, after nearly one and a half years, sentenced to serve 15 days in jail for lying, falsely claiming local police assaulted her. In February 2015 Heather Doyle, a radical “activist” climbed a crane at the Dominion Cove Point LNG export facility to hang a banner that said, “Dominion get out. Don’t frack Maryland. No gas exports. Save Cove Point.” It’s bad enough that she endangered herself along with another activist who aided her. She also endangered rescue workers and police who had to remove her from the crane. Then Doyle lied to the police and claimed Calvert County Sheriff’s Office deputies assaulted her as they were removing her from the crane SHE climbed up. That’s a very serious charge–especially in this day and age. The police investigated and discovered she was lying, so the District Attorney pressed charges. And it took this long for the case to play out. On May 27, Judge Marjorie Clagett of the Calvert County Circuit Court sentenced Doyle to three months in jail, with all but 15 days suspended, 240 hours of community service, two years of supervised probation, and $165 in court costs. It ain’t much, but it’s a little bit of justice against radicals who frequently break the law in a misguided attempt to protest fossil fuels…
    Read More “Cove Point Protester Sentenced to Jail, Lied About Police Assault”

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    NJ Enviro Groups Continue Attacks on Safe, Needed PennEast Pipe

    straws
    Credit: Wikipedia

    Grasping at straws is the closest analogy we can think of to describe the latest desperate attempt by environmental groups in New Jersey to stop the PennEast Pipeline from getting built. Lawyers for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association have written to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking FERC to suspend its review of the PennEast Pipeline application. Why? Because, they say, PennEast hasn’t provided data requested by FERC and several state agencies. Which is, of course, a joke. PennEast has provided everything requested. This is yet another smokescreen, a delay tactic by people who irrationally hate all fossil fuels…
    Read More “NJ Enviro Groups Continue Attacks on Safe, Needed PennEast Pipe”

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    Boston “Religious” Leaders Arrested for Blocking Pipeline Work

    Left your first loveLast July MDN told you about a group of so-called religious leaders from the Boston area who have taken to worshiping Mother Earth (the creation) instead of worshiping the Creator (see Group of Bostonians Use Religion to Protest 5-Mile Natgas Pipeline). We won’t belabor the point we’ve made so often, that these people are hypocrites in the extreme by protesting “fossil fuels” when their very existence is dependent on fossil fuels. This group of so-called religious leaders are against a 5-mile natural gas pipeline that will deliver more cheap, abundant, clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas to local residents in the Boston area. Their sole objection to the pipeline is that natural gas is a fossil fuel, and they object to burning fossil fuels based on twisted religious grounds (even though they arrive at protest events in vehicles powered by fossil fuels). Fine. Let them spout off and make jerks of themselves. We have a First Amendment that allows them to do just that. But spouting off is not enough for this crew. They’ve taken to breaking the law. A group of these misguided “religious leaders” were arrested yesterday because they blocked a construction site for the pipeline, shutting down construction and costing Spectra Energy, the company building it, a load of money. Perhaps the parishioners at the “churches” (and synagogues and mosques) led by these “leaders” will enjoy seeing their offering money go to fund damages?…
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    The Carbon Crazies Turn Out at Exxon Mobil’s Annual Meeting

    System ChangeThe climate changer crazies were in full regalia outside of the Dallas, TX facility where Exxon Mobil was holding its annual meeting yesterday morning. Sporting signs that said “Keep It in the Ground” and “System Change not Climate Change” (which was from “an ecosocialist coalition”) and many others, these nutjobs shouted at investors filing in to the facility. Christopher Helman, a reporter from Forbes, was on hand–both inside the meeting and outside to talk with the crazies (give that man hazard pay!). Helman files this report…
    Read More “The Carbon Crazies Turn Out at Exxon Mobil’s Annual Meeting”

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    PA Radical Enviros Blame Democrat Senator for Quigley Firing

    Jan Jarrett
    Jan Jarrett

    Jan Jarrett, former head of the radical Big Green group PennFuture and one of the people disgraced and fired John Quigley, former Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), colludes with to target Democrats who deign to disagree with his radical policies, is (surprise!) attacking Democrats who disagree with Quigley’s radical policies. Jarrett is accusing Democrat Sen. John Yudichak from Luzerne County, PA of “orchestrating…a vicious, successful smear campaign” against her “dear friend” John Quigley. What utter crap. Quigley and Jarrett are the ones who targeted people with a smear campaign. Quigley told Jarrett’s former employer PennFuture (and other Big Green groups) to get off their rear-ends (dropping the “f” bomb) and to do something about so-called “apostates” in the Democrat Party who are not supporting his wild and radical regulatory proposals (read the email here – Smoking Gun: Copy of the Email that Got John Quigley Fired). No doubt Sen. Yudichak had something to do with exposing the email sent by Quigley–FROM A PRIVATE ACCOUNT which is unethical in the extreme, perhaps illegal–to the light of day for all to see. But for Jarrett and others to blame Yudichak and target him for helping to expose Quigley’s unethical behavior is like a criminal blaming the victim for telling the truth about what happened…
    Read More “PA Radical Enviros Blame Democrat Senator for Quigley Firing”

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    Smoking Gun: Copy of the Email that Got John Quigley Fired

    smoking-gun.jpgIn the end, it was John Quigley’s own hubris that resulted in his demise as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection. As we reported yesterday, last Friday Sec. Quigley suddenly resigned his position (see PA DEP Sec. John Quigley Resigns Over Email Collusion Scandal). Most media reports blame an email scandal as the primary reason for his dismissal. As one MDN reader wrote to us, how could Quigley be so stupid as to commit his remarks to an email? Why didn’t he just pick up the phone and call his buddies at Big Green radical groups to collude with them? Indeed. If he had, he might still have a job. Below we have a copy of the infamous email Quigley sent to PennFuture, PennEnvironment, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. In the email he drops the “f” bomb first thing–essentially a verbal slap across the faces of his Big Green buddies. He “encourages” them, like a Mafioso don, to extract payment for enviro “apostacy” from Democrats who dare to disagree with him and his radical enviro policies–and to “shame” Republicans. When you read it, you’ll know exactly why Quigley was FIRED by Gov. Wolf…
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    OH Fractivists Want BLM to Extend Comment Period for Wayne NF

    Wayne National Forest
    Wayne National Forest – 60% of the mineral rights are privately owned

    The anti-drilling loons of Athens County, OH are at it again. ACFAN (The Athens County Fracking Action Network) along with other radicals like the Ohio Sierra Club, want the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to extend a comment period on drilling operations that are due to begin in Wayne National Forest (WNF). We’ve previously written plenty about WNF, including the fact that 60% of the forest is privately owned and that the federal government has blocked those private citizens from accessing the oil and gas under their land going on 10 years now (see our WNF stories here). ACFAN also wants another freak show, er, a, public hearing–so they can parade themselves before the cameras one more time. Thing is, the BLM has already held public hearings. The BLM has accepted public comments–for YEARS. It’s time to end this nonsense and to allow fracking to begin on PEOPLE’S PRIVATE PROPERTY. Enough of these delay tactics by groups like ACFAN…
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