Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel

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    Water Well Testing Near OH Injection Wells Comes Back Negative

    Athens County, OH is infested with liberal Democrats who irrationally hate fossil fuels. Let’s just get the facts out there on the table, shall we? The ninny nannies in Athens finally (after years of agitation) browbeat their neighbors into voting for a frack ban last year (see 3 of 4 Frack Ban Ballot Measures in Ohio Fail – Athens Exception). Whatever. Athens County hosts eight wastewater injection wells and that drives the crazies every crazier. They’re doing their damnedest to get all eight shut down, and to deny a permit for a ninth well (see Athens County Asks Gov Kasich & ODNR to Stop New Injection Wells). One of their strategies is to prove that the existing wastewater injection wells are causing pollution of nearby water wells and groundwater supplies. So a study was done, testing nine different water wells for the presence of volatile organic compounds–a signal that wastewater is leaking into the wells. Guess what they found? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. The injection wells are not contaminating groundwater and water well sources. What do the crazies want? More testing! More more more more more. They want to test until they find something–or rig the tests so something gets found…
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    Shale Gas Faces Double Trouble: Low Prices & Pipeline Opposition

    According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), the natural gas industry faces a double “new normal” that hobbles the industry: (1) low prices for natural gas for the foreseeable future, and (2) public opposition to pipeline expansion, especially in New England. Here’s what IEEFA’s executive director, Sandy Buchanan, says about this double threat to our beloved industry…
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    Paris Climate Summit Jazzes Obama…Why it Doesn’t Matter

    Yesterday our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama (BHO), addressed global warming nutters from around the world who came to Paris to agree to less freedom for citizens of the United States (and to sentence developing countries to lifetimes of misery). That about sums up what the United Nations twenty-first conference of the parties (COP-21) is all about. It’s about limiting economic activity in countries around the world under the pretense of man-made global warming. What’s funny about yesterday is that even one of their own, BHO, was a little too windy for the assembled nutters. Apparently you can have too much wind–who knew? BHO, like other world leaders to address the assembled warmers, was given a 3-minute time slot to spout his opinions blaming the USA for global warming. But BHO, like the Energizer Bunny, just kept going and going and going. At the nine minute mark the Frenchies started to hit the buzzer and kept stabbing it periodically to signal BHO it was time to get his @$$ off the stage. But the tone deaf BHO kept right on jabbering until he was done reading the last word the teleprompter told him to read–some 11 minutes after he began. Below we have the story of BHO’s long-winded address to COP-21, along with some rational views about what this ill-fated conference is really all about, and why no agreement BHO signs will ever see the light of day (or matter) in the good old US of A…
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    PA Supreme Court to Hear Case on Banning Drilling on State Lands

    Pennsylvania’s Democrat Supreme Court will take up the issue of whether or not private property rights still exist in the Keystone State. That’s the clear legal issue before the court over whether or not the State of Pennsylvania can continue to allow oil and gas drilling on state lands and use the revenues it receives as part of the general fund. Lower courts have all ruled that yes, the state can legally lease its own property, and allow drilling under public land for which it doesn’t, in some cases, own the mineral rights. But radical environmentalists are attempting to abuse the state’s highest court–now packed with liberal Democrats–to achieve what they can’t achieve by any other means. They’re hoping the high court will find a new cockamamie “right” to protect the environment that trumps public and even private property rights in the process. That is, they’re hoping the Supremes will rule that the state MUST ban drilling on state-owned land, in order to protect Mother Earth…
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    Antis Ramp Up to Discredit EPA Study that Found Fracking is Safe

    It was certainly a major blow to radical environmentalists when, after studying fracking for more than four years (reviewing some 950 studies, including conducting several original studies of its own), the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced what everyone already knew: fracking is safe (see EPA Draft Report Says Fracking Doesn’t Pollute Groundwater Supplies). Science is science and facts are facts. The announcement took the wind out of the sails for anti-fossil fuel nutters who thought they could convince everyone to return to the stone ages and eliminate the use of fossil fuels. However, science has been corrupted and politicized–just witness the global warming debate. Radical environmentalists knowing they can never convince the hoi polloi, the great unwashed, the people they consider idiots, to go along with their holier-than-thou energy plans to eliminate fossil fuels, if fracking is perceived as anything but evil–are fighting back. Here’s the plan. Get the EPA to discredit its own study. That process is now underway. In October the usual radical suspects showed up at EPA HQ to demand they turn their backs on their own study (see Anti Groups Try to Convince EPA They Got it Wrong with Water Study). Apparently they got through to at least a few sympathetic “scientists” who are members of the EPA’s own Scientific Advisory Board…
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    Natural Gas is Killing City Trees! Tree Whisperer Tells All

    Here’s one more reason to dump evil, nasty, rotten fossil fuels–like natural gas. It kills trees. Yes, methane is a TREE KILLER. Who knew? In yet another laughable “all fossil fuels are evil” meme from the usual suspects at the Democrat house organ called StateImpact Pennsylvania, we get the latest anti-fossil fuel story about how methane leaks in cities are killing poor, defenseless trees that can’t stand up to that nasty bully, fugitive methane. Seems there’s a good business to be had being a tree whisperer…
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    Anti-Frackers Out of Control at Athens Mtg on Wayne Natl Forest

    Correction: We labeled the publication reporting on the BLM meeting in Athens as “the Athens Post.” It is, more correctly, “The Post,” a student newspaper published at Ohio University’s Athens campus. We have yet another glaring example of the outright lies and distortions of not only national, but local liberal media. In this case from the student-run  The Post — a publication of Ohio University – Athens. A “reporter” (leftie stenographer) is repeating propaganda from anti-drilling crazies who attended a recent meeting hosted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service about the plan to begin fracking in the Wayne National Forest. As they usually do, a group of hippie and hippie wannabe nutters turned out to harass people who support drilling. The antis behaved badly–as they always do. They threw things (paper airplanes, namely), they spat on fracking supporters, hollered and chanted and in general, behaved in an aggressive manner. At one point, when it became apparent the meeting was getting out of hand, a U.S. Forest Service officer used his baton to push some of the crazies back. A very short clip, taken out of context, shows it happening–and that became the focus of the story published by The Post. From start to finish the “story” is a lie. These aggressive (we’d call them terrorist) nutters are demanding the Forest Service agent lose his job for doing his job in protecting the peaceful people at the meeting…
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    Susan Sarandon Supports Anti-Pipeline Movement in Massachusetts

    What do Hollywood celebrities do to boost a sagging career? Celebrities who were once “A” list but have sunk to “B” and “C” list status? Celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon found notoriety in supporting the anti-fracking movement. But the problem with “success” when it comes to anti-fracking (a la New York’s ban), is that once you’ve won, what do you do then? You see, antis like Ruffalo and Sarandon always need another bogyman–another “cause” to inject (a) notoriety, and (b) meaning into their otherwise meaningless lives. Like a junkie who needs another fix, these people need to be in the news, their face and name plastered everywhere, or they don’t think anyone “loves” them anymore. It’s a shame what depths they sink to, really. At least Sarandon has talent–Ruffalo has no talent. Sarandon (or more properly, her agent) has (surprise!) found a new cause to promote–time to prop up that sagging career. Sarandon has thrown in her lot with the crazies opposing the Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project–the massive $5 billion expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline system from Pennsylvania into New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and back into Massachusetts where it will end near Boston. Sarandon recently issued a statement through the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, whose director, Leigh Youngblood, has been at the forefront of opposing any new pipelines in the Bay State…
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    NY Town Supports, Antis Fundraise Against, Waterless Fracking

    MDN editor Jim Willis is often asked, when people learn of his occupation of writing about shale drilling, “What’s up with New York? Will there ever be any drilling in the state?” Jim’s answer is always the same: some day. But likely not until we excrete out of office our current man-child governor, Andy Cuomo. The one potential bright spot for fracking in the Empire State is a plan by a small group of farmers in Tioga County, NY to use waterless fracking technology to drill a test shale well (see NY Landowners File to Frack Horizontal Well w/Waterless Tech). The Snyder Farm Group, as it’s called, has filed an application with the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC)–owned and controlled by Cuomo–so that’s where the application now sits, with nothing happening so far as we can tell. Sooner or later the Snyder Group will have to sue the DEC to move things along. In the meantime, we have two bits of news to share with respect to the Town of Barton waterless fracking proposal. One bit of news is about support for the plan in Tioga County, and the other is about opposition to the plan from the usual suspects who oppose ANYTHING to do with fossil energy, not because it’s somehow inherently dangerous to extract natural gas, but because it IS natural gas. An irrational hatred of carbon molecules (the stuff you breathe out with every breath)…
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    PA County Judge Rules Rex Can Begin Drilling First Martian Well

    My Favorite MartianAs we have long chronicled, a few anti-drilling parents from the Mars School District (Butler County, far western part of the state), backed by a couple of Big Green groups from the other side of the state (in the Philadelphia area), sued Middlesex Township to stop shale drilling in rural portions of the county. Rex Energy had applied for, was legally permitted for, but still hasn’t been allowed to drill a series of wells some three-fourths of a mile from the Mars School (for background, see our long list of “Martian” stories here). This is the outrage: These very same anti-drillers fought hard to overturn a portion of the 2012 Act 13 law that took zoning of oil and gas out of the hands of local towns and put it in state hands. The zoning portion of Act 13 was overturned by the PA Supreme Court. The antis got what they wanted–except, it seems, they got a little too much of what they wanted. They didn’t factor that in some towns there would be a majority who favor fracking and shale drilling–like in Middlesex. Middlesex ran an extensive series of nine hearings over seven months and eventually adopted zoning ordinances that allow Rex to drill. So the antis sued to stop what they previously sued to achieve. Eventually a group of landowners counter-sued the antis (rightfully so) for denying them access to allow drilling on their own land. That lawsuit is still playing out in the courts. Last Thursday a Butler County judge ruled, once again, that the zoning ordinances adopted by Middlesex are legal and therefore drilling can commence. The antis will appeal the decision and continue to try and block local landowners from legally using their own property as they see fit…
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    Antis Use Radiation Fears to Oppose Drilling in Wayne Natl Forest

    You just have to shake your head. We’ve heard just about every anti-drilling objection a thousand times before, but it never ceases to amaze us how objections get recycled. And every last one is a ruse–meant to distract from the real issue, which is anti-drillers believe in the global warming myth and THAT is the REAL reason they oppose drilling. They don’t/can’t object to drilling for reasons like fracking contaminates water supplies (it doesn’t), or because it causes earthquakes (it doesn’t), or because it releases enough radon to give you cancer (it doesn’t). That last one is the latest objection anti-drillers who live in or near the Wayne National Forest in Ohio are using to try and scare people into support a ban on fracking in the Forest. We’ve been hearing that canard since 2012 (see The Latest Anti-Drilling Scare Tactic: Radon in Shale Gas). The thing about radon, an isotope of radium, is that it’s naturally occurring and found just about everywhere in the northeast–and people aren’t dropping like flies. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey did a study and found both methane and radon in the water supplies in Pike County, PA–where there IS NO shale drilling (see USGS Study: Pike County Water has Methane, Radon – No Drilling). How do you mitigate radon if you have it in your basement? You vent it to the air where it become inert! But facts haven’t stopped the nutters from coming out of the woodwork in Ohio to claim radium/radon is going to kill everyone if fracking is allowed in the Wayne National Forest…
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    Lebanon County Antis Want Public (Spectacle) Mtg or No Mtg at All

    The demands of anti-drillers in Lebanon County, PA are illustrative of their true motivations. Two different anti groups–Lebanon Pipeline Awareness and Concerned Citizens of Lebanon County–are demanding Lebanon County commissioners have an open public meeting with two pipeline companies. The two pipeline companies are Williams (Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline) and Sunoco Logistics Partners (Mariner East 1 & 2 pipelines). If the meeting is not open and public, so these nutters can pummel representatives of the companies in public and have it broadcast everywhere–they want no meeting at all. Williams and Sunoco had agreed to non-public meetings that INCLUDE members of these two groups–to answer their questions. But the pipeline companies, and the county commissioners, don’t want a circus. That means no cameras/media, and the meeting is not open so it can be packed by large numbers of antis. The companies are willing to sit down and talk like adults and answer questions and address concerns–like adults. But that’s not what Lebanon Pipeline Awareness nor Concerned Citizens of Lebanon County really want. They want to behave like petulant children throwing a temper tantrum for everyone to witness. Evidence: Instead of taking the private meeting, they (the antis) want no meeting at all…
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    Wrath of Kann: PA Anti’s Disorderly Conduct Conviction Overturned

    Kimberly Kann, a resident of Conestoga Township in Lancaster County, PA, decided she would break the rules at a town meeting this past April. The meeting was to discuss so-called home rule and the role it should play in the town with respect to regulating pipelines, like the planned Atlantic Coast Pipeline project from Williams. The ground rules for the meeting were simple: ASK QUESTIONS ONLY. Kann decided she would use it as a public forum to pontificate and rail against pipelines. She wouldn’t ask questions and was repeatedly warned–so when she wouldn’t shut up, they arrested her and threw her out of the meeting (see Wrath of Kann: Lancaster Anti-Driller Arrested/Ejected from Mtg). In July she was found guilty as charged (see Wrath of Kann: Lancaster Anti-Driller Guilty of Disorderly Conduct). Kann should have paid her $325 fine/court costs and ended it–but she kept fighting. It eventually would cost her $3,000 in legal fees, but Kann, like the character played by Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II, has had the last laugh. In a hollow victory, Kann got her conviction overturned by a Lancaster County judge…
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    Coordinated Attack? MassPLAN Uses Riverkeeper Pipeline Delay Tactic

    In what appears to be a coordinated attack on new natural gas pipelines, the Massachusetts Pipe-Line Awareness Network (MassPLAN) is using the same delay tactic to slow down Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project running from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts as was pioneered by THE Delaware Riverkeeper to slow down the PennEast Pipeline project running from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. Last month MDN exposed Riverkeeper’s sleazy strategy of encouraging thousands to sign up as “intervenors” with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)–even running “intervenor training” to show them how to do it (see Delaware Riverkeeper Scams FERC in Review of PennEast Pipeline). MassPLAN is using a chapter from Riverkeeper and has asked FERC to extend the time allowed to sign up as intervenors, so they can jam pack as many crazies as possible onto the intervenor roster…
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    OH ‘National Day of Action’ Against Fracking a Huge Flop

    Looks like Tuesday’s so-called National Day of Action against fracking was an even bigger bust than we thought it would be (see Here Comes Another “National Day of Action” Against Fracking). In Painesville (Lake County), OH we spot three protesters who put on a skit (creative folks, those radical environmentalist). In Weathersfield Township (Trumbull County), OH we spot five protesters. It was Athens County, OH however where the biggest concentration of nutters was to be found. Upward of 40 protesters gathered near a fracking site in the Torch/Coolville area. The Willis Family reunion had more people in attendance this past summer–but we didn’t spot any news cameras around to record the event. Perhaps if we had held anti-fracking signs we would have been featured on the evening news?…
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    Anti-Drilling MA Attorney General: We Don’t Need No Pipelines

    Is it us, or does it seem like all Democrat politicians have dictatorial aspirations? Obama clearly does. If he doesn’t like what the Constitution says, he just makes up his own Executive Orders–Constitution be damned. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is the same–just strip away the Constitutional property rights of everyone in his state by instituting an illegal frack ban. New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, is the same. He’s abusing his office in an elaborate government shake down of fossil fuel companies like Exxon Mobil–rubbing his hands together at the thought of forcing them to pay him billions. Here’s another prominent Dem to add to the list: Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. She’s appointed herself an expert on whether or not New England needs new natural gas pipelines to carry Marcellus Shale gas to the region. Yes, we know–an Attorney General should have nothing to do with such a decision–but that’s life in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. Healey doesn’t care a whit about the free market or capitalism–she personally wants to control every aspect of the lives of New Englanders. But Dems like Healey know that unless you’re Obama with a group of gutless Republicans in Congress who won’t hold you accountable, you can’t get away with just ruling by fiat. You have to convince (i.e. hoodwink) people. So Healey has to go to the trouble of making things up. Here’s her latest: She just released a “study” to say New England’s electric supply over the next 15 years will be just fine without new natgas supplies to power electric plants–so long as everyone keeps their thermostats turned down to 50 degrees in the winter and layers up with three or four sweaters (that’s always the Dem solution). The study (full copy below) is, of course, a joke. It was created by a group of people with glaring conflicts of interest…
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