Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel

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    What’s Next for NY/NJ Port Ambrose Floating LNG Terminal?

    who caresTwo days ago MDN told you that the U.S. Coast Guard has approved of a project off the coast of New York and New Jersey that would import natural gas from Trinidad (see Coast Guard Approves Port Ambrose LNG Import Terminal Near NYC/NJ). The USCG’s approval is an important step–but not the only step before Liberty Natural Gas begins construction of the Port Ambrose floating LNG facility. The project must be approved by the United States Maritime Administration too. And, either governor, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo or NJ Gov. Chris Christie, can veto the project and prevent it–a lot of power for a governor to wield. We’re not all that excited about the Port Ambrose project ourselves–we think it’s not necessary with all of the gas we have in the Marcellus/Utica. We also don’t like how Liberty bashes “fracked gas” like the molecules in Marcellus gas are somehow different from natural gas imported from Trinidad. That’s just a marketing ploy. What’s really hilarious is how anti-fossil fuelers are reacting. Once again, as they did with the fracking issue, antis are stalking Gov. Cuomo at public events to pressure him to veto this project. A group of made complete asses of themselves Wednesday night by dressing up in Revolutionary War-era costumes and singing environmental versions of songs from the musical “Hamilton” that Cuomo attended. Will Cuomo cave to these nutjobs yet again as he did with fracking? Will Liberty get to build their off-shore import terminal? Do we even care?…
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    Landowner Lawsuit Against Martians NOT Dismissed After All

    My Favorite MartianLast month MDN told you that a county judge in Butler County, PA dismissed a lawsuit brought by a business and group of Middlesex Township landowners against two Big Green groups and four anti-fossil fuel parents from the Mars School District–whom we refer to as the Martians (see Landowners’ Countersuit Against Martians Tossed by Obama Judge). MDN reported the lawsuit was dismissed based on a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story which interviewed one of the lawyers for the Martians, from the anti-American American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU flack said the case was dismissed and we figured he must know how courts work, so we believed it. Our mistake. The unquestioning Post-Gazette reporter also bought the lies pedaled by the ACLU lawyer. What really happened was this: The judge said the case will be dismissed IF a more specific case is not filed within 20 days. Guess what? A new case was filed and (so far) the lawsuit against Delaware Riverkeeper and the Clean Air Council (both of Philly, on the other side of the state) as well as against the Martians, is still alive…
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    Shale Playing Big Role in PA Supreme Court Race, 3 Open Seats

    vote early vote oftenEven the election of judges for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is political, sadly. Extreme leftist environmental groups in PA, including Clean Water Action, the Pennsylvania Sierra Club, PennEnvironment, and Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania are engaging in political activities (in violation of their non-profit, tax-exempt status) by endorsing a slate of candidates and pushing their members to vote for those candidates. We know this will be a complete shock for you, but the three candidates running for three open seats on the Supreme Court being pushed by the enviro extremist groups are all (gasp) liberal Democrats who are likely to vote against the Marcellus Shale industry on cases that come before the high court…
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    Gang of 20 Anti-Fossil Fuel Groups Attack Philly Energy Hub Plan

    can't fix stupidMore evidence of the insanity of well-funded Big Green groups like Food & Water Watch, THE (arrogant) Delaware Riverkeeper, Clean Air Council and others. Not getting enough traction on their own, 20 Big Green groups have decided to collude in violation of their non-profit status. The 20 groups held a “massive” joint rally yesterday in Philadelphia (pictures look like there’s maybe three dozen people present) to announce the formation of a new coalition called Green Justice Philly. The object of the coalition is to push back against the plan to make Philadelphia an energy hub in the northeast–like Houston is in the southwest. The gang of 20 have pledged to coordinate their lies and attacks on the fossil fuel industry, hoping to stop forward progress against fossil fuel companies, which they call “lawbreakers.” The gang of 20 is pressuring Philadelphia City Council to decline new permits for companies like Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES)–which operates the East Coast’s largest refinery on the banks of the Delaware River–hoping to prevent PES from building anything new or expanding their existing operation any further in Philadelphia. The gang of 20 wants to choke off new jobs and new investment if those jobs and investment comes from the evil, vile fossil fuel industry. Boggles the mind…
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    Walnut Cove, NC Plans to Pass Illegal Frack Moratorium

    illegalLast month MDN told you about the a group of politicians in Stokes County, North Caroline (Board of Commissioners) who voted to pass a three-year moratorium on shale drilling in the county (see Sad: NC County Passes 3-Year Moratorium on Fracking). Not long after that story ran the NC state legislature passed a law, signed by the governor, that makes such local laws illegal, nullifying the Stokes County vote (see NC Legislature Makes Local Frack Bans/Moratoria Illegal). MDN was contacted by one of the top geologists in the Marcellus/Utica, originally from North Carolina, to let us know there really isn’t anything much worth fracking in Stokes County anyway–so it’s kind of an empty political gesture. Now a township in Stokes County–Walnut Cove–is set to vote on the same thing, knowing full well their vote is illegal, daring someone to challenge them in court…
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    Bloomberg Discloses the Real Motivation for Anti-Fracking Protests

    told you soA Bloomberg article published yesterday perfectly captures what MDN has been saying now for at least five years: the real opposition to fracking and pipelines is not because of health concerns or environmental damage or any of a dozen or more surface arguments. Those issues are all weapons used in a public relations war–used to confuse casual news consumers who don’t bother to read or listen to more than headlines. The real reason–the core reason–why people oppose fracking and pipelines and all the rest is because the disease of global warming belief has metastasized in their liberal brains, and they irrationally want to end the use of all fossil fuels. It’s in black and white, stated plainly, in the Bloomberg article. The article mentions the Marcellus and the Constitution pipeline. It also highlights the activities of serial protester and founder of FANG (Fighting Against Natural Gas), Nick Katkevich, someone we’ve reported on previously (see The Useful Idiots, and Evil Puppet Masters, Behind Radical FANG). In the Bloomberg article, Katkevich admits his true/sole purpose with his illegal protest activities is to stop the use of all fossil fuels…
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    Peters Twp, PA Continues to Delay Drilling by “Studying” It

    expect delaysPeters Township, the most populous township in Washington County, PA, is one of the seven selfish towns that sued the state over the zoning provisions in the Act 13 law, eventually winning at the PA Supreme Court level (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against State/Drillers in Act 13 Case). The Act 13 victory gives townships the right to pass local zoning ordinances that restrict–but don’t ban–Marcellus/Utica drilling. Peters has been adept at using the victory to keep drilling banned by “studying” the issue to death (see Peters Twp, PA Pretends to Debate Ordinance to Allow Drilling). Their pattern of pushing off drilling continues. Peters Town Council members have just voted to spend $29,000 to pay a consultant to study how close is too close when it comes to drilling operations. It appears to be yet another way to further delay drilling in the town…
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    Martians Give Conservative British MP a Tour of PA Fracking

    My Favorite MartianThe United Kingdom (as in Merry Old England) is finally, seriously, considering permits to allow shale fracking in the country. It’s taken a long time, and it’s certainly not a done deal yet. But it’s getting much closer. A Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) from a district in the north of England likely to see shale drilling when/if it happens recently traveled 3,500 miles to visit Pennsylvania, to see the effects of shale drilling firsthand. We applaud the MP’s efforts to see it up close. Unfortunately, Conservatives in the UK are more like RINOs here–there really aren’t all that many true conservatives in the socialistic UK. So when our “Conservative” MP came calling, one of the “expert” groups he took a tour with was the nutty Martians, a small group of anti-drillers in Butler County called the Mars Parent Group (see MDN’s list of Martian stories here). Incredibly, even after receiving a manure spreader full of lies from the Martians, our Conservative MP is still keeping an open mind about fracking back home…
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    The Dirt on Basil Seggos – Cuomo’s Disastrous Pick to Run the DEC

    investigateEarly last week MDN told you about NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s disastrous new pick to run the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the agency that oversees oil and gas drilling in the Empire State (see Disaster at NY DEC: Cuomo Nominates Anti-Driller to Helm Agency). It was early days, but we offered up evidence that we felt show the anti-drilling tendencies of Basil Seggos to head the DEC. MDN friend Tom Shepstone has done some more of his superb investigative work and presents “the rest of the story.” Tom says not only were our suspicions about Seggos correct, it’s even worse than we had imagined. It’s a big, incestuous mess that all leads back to the odious NRDC…
    Read More “The Dirt on Basil Seggos – Cuomo’s Disastrous Pick to Run the DEC”

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    New Junk Science Claims PA Fracking Leads to Premature Births

    junk scienceIn January 2014, anti-drilling “researchers” jumped the gun at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Philadelphia by announcing “preliminary” results of research in which they claim they can show a connection between shale drilling and low birth weights in newborn babies in Pennsylvania (see Another Flawed Fracking/Health Study Emerges…from Economics Conf). The “researchers” quickly walked back the announcement they made at the conference because, well, because they hadn’t actually done the research yet (see Researchers Backpedal on Bloomberg Story about Fracking & Babies). Another group of “researchers” claims to have done the research (same set of data) and published a new study along the same lines last week in the journal Epidemiology. The conclusion? The closer you live to shale drilling activity in PA, the more likely your baby will born prematurely. The study, called “Unconventional Natural Gas Development and Birth Outcomes in Pennsylvania, USA,” was partially funded by the ultra-liberal Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and subjected to a sham peer review process to give it the veneer of respectability…
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    Sierra Club Pres. Destroyed Under Questioning about Global Warming

    empty headWe’ve written plenty over the years about the silly nutters who make up the Sierra Club. It’s a joke of an organization, and that was evident for the world to see earlier this week when U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz questioned the president of the Sierra Club, Aaron Mair, at a Congressional hearing. Using simple, direct and non-bullying questions, Cruz exposed Mair as an empty-headed fraud only capable of regurgitating a few canned responses to Cruz’s questions about man-made global warming. The standard line was to repeat over and over that “97 percent of scientists agree” on man-made global warming. That particular statistic comes from a small, flawed study of hand-picked scientists back in 2013. Mair and others hope by repeating the lie over and over enough times, everyone will believe it. Cruz didn’t fall for it. There is a video (below) that you MUST watch. It exposes Mair as a fool–not able to defend his own statements about global warming. Nearly every question Cruz asked Mair would have to lean back to have his advisers feed him the answers. Mair is an empty suit–nobody home upstairs. Empty-headed. It’s a beautiful example of the entire organization, showing it as nothing more than a political advocacy group, ignorant of real science. Yes, we do revisit the important topic of global warming from time to time because the issue is at the heart of the movement to ban fracking and end the use of all fossil fuels–a dangerously naive and stupid movement supported by organizations like the Sierra Club…
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    OH Judge Rules in Favor of NEXUS Survey, Ticks Off the CORNballs

    cornballsOn Tuesday a Medina County, OH judge ruled that the NEXUS pipeline does have a right to enter private land to survey it for possible routes for the pipeline. The judge said Ohio laws allow private companies to survey land for eventual appropriation (including eminent domain) as long as the company can prove it is an energy or utility company. The judge said the law is quite clear on that point–plain and simple to understand. The judge’s decision didn’t sit too well with the CORNballs of CORN (Coalition to Reroute Nexus pipeline). We’ve written plenty about CORN and their effort to “reroute” the NEXUS (see our CORN stories here). Although the group states their aim is to reroute the NEXUS away from northern counties in Ohio, what they’re really trying to do is simply stop the pipeline altogether. Every legal and political maneuver they’ve tried has failed. But that doesn’t deter the CORN faithful. They’re baaaack! This time the CORNballs are taking their fight to the state legislature, hoping they can get a law passed favorable to their cause…
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    Actor Mark Ruffalo Asks PA Gov Wolf to Enact Drilling Moratorium

    cluelessAs a general rule, professional actors are some of the most clueless people on the planet. Mark Ruffalo, one of the most clueless of the clueless, was honored at a Pennsylvania college because of it. Ruffalo was honored by Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA (near Harrisburg) with the Sam Rose ’58 and Julie Walters Prize for his environmental cluelessism, er, a, activism. Hey, Ruffalo does a decent job with acting (we enjoy the Avengers movies)–we’ll grant him that. But have you ever noticed the lights are all on with Ruffalo–but nobody’s actually home? Anywho, the awarded Ruffalo, who calls himself “an accidental environmentalist,” will make a trip to Harrisburg today to deliver a letter from “100 organizations” and “25,000 concerned citizens” to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf. The letter will ask Wolf to immediately enact a fracking moratorium in the state. What…radical? No way that will ever happen? Pipe dream? You may have forgetten (but we didn’t) that the Pennsylvania State Democrat Party, before they nominated Wolf to be their leader, adopted an official plank in the party platform calling for the same identical thing (see PA Democrat Party Votes to End Marcellus Shale Drilling Statewide). The clueless Ruffalo is asking for the same thing the Dems have already said they want…
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    Antis Continue Campaign Against Off-Shore LNG Terminal Near NY/NJ

    shoot yourself in the footA story we first brought you back in March continues to play out. Liberty Natural Gas filed a plan back in 2010, prior to the Marcellus Shale revolution, to construct an off-shore LNG import (not export) facility off the coast of New York and New Jersey–in the ocean. A floating LNG facility called the Port Ambrose project. A pipeline would run from the off-shore terminal to Jones Beach, NY and from there would connect to a Transco pipeline lateral. Anti-fossil fuelers who hate and oppose all fracking (indeed all fossil fuel use) are also opposed to this project. So what did Liberty Natural Gas do? They tried to convince the antis that importing gas from Trinidad is better than using nasty, evil, vile “fracked” gas (see Liberty Says “Non-Fracked” Trinidad Gas Better than Marcellus Gas). Antis aren’t falling for it. In fact, in something of a funny reversal, antis are now using the argument that since we have so much fracked gas in the country (the very thing they irrationally hate), there isn’t a need for the Port Ambrose terminal. You know, this is the one time we’re in agreement with them!…
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    Disaster at NY DEC: Cuomo Nominates Anti-Driller to Helm Agency

    Basil Seggos
    Basil Seggos – Nominated by Cuomo to head the DEC

    It appears that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is attempting to shove the teetering oil and gas industry in the state over a metaphorical cliff and put it completely out of business. Last Friday Cuomo nominated an anti-driller, Basil Seggos, to be the next Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC)–the organization that oversees oil and gas drilling in the state. Seggos will replace another anti-driller, Joe Martens, complicit in Cuomo’s decision to ban fracking. Seggos will continue and likely expand the same policies begun by Martens. Seggos previously worked for seven years as the chief investigator and lawyer (chief litigator) for the radical environmental organization Riverkeeper. That alone should disqualify him from serving in such an important position–but in New York, the inmates run the asylum. You can tell Seggos will be a disaster (for the oil and gas industry) in his new position by the list of anti-drilling organizations falling all over themselves to congratulate Cuomo on the appointment. Seggos’ appointment is another in a string of disastrous decisions by the corrupt Andrew Cuomo administration…
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    Anti-Fossil Fuelers Disrupt Shale Event, Won’t Listen to Science

    fingers in earsWhat is it about some anti-drillers (actually, anti-fossil fuelers) that makes them closed-minded and unreasonable? A Colorado research chemist and two technology students from Singapore set out to answer the question of whether or not shale oil should be produced. All three attended a 10-week intensive course focusing on Utah’s vast oil reserves (no, this story is not about the Marcellus/Utica per se, but it is illustrative nonetheless). Although the three had intended on submitting a research paper at the 35th Annual Oil Shale Symposium being held yesterday and today in Salt Lake City, the research paper ended up being a 116-page e-book they’re selling on Amazon, called “Oil Shale: Treasure Trove or Pandora’s Box.” The authors, with no preconceived outcome before taking the 10-week course, objectively conclude that extracting shale oil in Utah or other locations “is not going to be some sort of environmental Armageddon. That is not true.” Protesters at the event, however, don’t want to hear reasonable talk. A group of anti-fossil fuelers, rather than sit and listen to the evidence and keep and open mind, rose during the event–a private (not public) event–and illegally disrupted the event with chanting and singing. Yep, stick you fingers in your ears and holler “la la la la, I can’t hear you!” instead of open your mind and use your little gray cells to try and comprehend the miracle that is fracking and the miracle that is fossil fuel energy…
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