Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel

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    Grant Twp, PA Reorganizes to Avoid a Court-Ordered Injection Well

    In October MDN told you about Grant Township in Indiana County, PA. The town had attempted to illegally block a permitted injection well from being drilled and used inside the town’s boundaries. The town folk have been whipped into an irrational frenzy by the radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). As usual, the CELDF-promoted so-called Community Bill of Rights failed in court, costing Grant Township taxpayers big bucks to defend (see Fed Judge Overturns Grant Twp, PA Ban on Injection Wells). People without jobs (like those infesting CELDF) have lots of time to be creative–so here’s the latest. They talked enough town folk into passing another/new plan on the November. The town voted to convert itself from being a PA Second Class Township form of organization to being PA Home Rule Charter form of organization–in an attempt to do an end-run around the judge’s ruling last month. Will it work? Probably not, but here we go again–another delay for Pennsylvania General Energy and their plan to drill an injection well. You know the old saying? Justice delayed is justice denied. When will the courts step in and stop this madness?…
    Read More “Grant Twp, PA Reorganizes to Avoid a Court-Ordered Injection Well”

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    Youngstown Frack Ban Measure Voted Down 5th Time in a Row

    Five times the anti-drilling zealots of Youngstown have garnered enough signatures from dead folks and others to get a so-called Community Bill of Rights (i.e. ban fracking) measure on the ballot for a citywide vote. FIVE TIMES. And you know what? As of last Tuesday, the ballot measure has been voted down–FIVE TIMES. In a row. And yet the crazies keep getting bringing it back. If they get a single vote more than the previous vote, they herald it as “movement” in their direction. The crazies enlisted a few quite a few more crazies this time around. The vote was a lot closer than one would like: 5,683 (48.53%) voted for it, and 6,028 (51.47%) voted against it. Following the results, the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce issued the following statement…
    Read More “Youngstown Frack Ban Measure Voted Down 5th Time in a Row”

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    NY AG Schneiderman Launches the Climate Witch Trials

    Once a witch-hunter catches the scent of a suspected witch–better watch out! It struck us as we read about the drummed up false charges New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is alleging against ExxonMobil–charges that the company has knowingly made false statements about their own complicity and contribution to mythical climate change–just how doomed we really are to repeat history. Schneiderman’s actions reminded us of something, and then we found it: “Rebecca Nurse, a sick and elderly woman of seventy-years old, stood for examination before the court on charges of practicing witchcraft on March 24, 1692. Judge John Hathorne, assisted by Judge Jonathan Corwin, conducted the examination in the meeting house of Salem Village before a crowd of people from Salem Village. The examination of “Goody Nurse” developed into a spectacle worthy of the attendance of so many onlookers, as a number of afflicted women launched into “grevious fitts” and openly denounced Rebecca Nurse as the cause of their torment. In the end, after one of the great confrontations between an accused and the infamous Judge Hathorne, the Judges found cause to bind Rebecca Nurse over for trial after which she was executed on Gallows Hill on July 19, 1692.” (University of Virginia). We’re facing the Salem Witch Trials all over again–some 323 years later. Apparently we didn’t learn anything the first time around. MDN calls Schneiderman’s current campaign the Climate Witch Trials–the prosecution and persecution of innocent companies based on a false belief that mankind causes global warming by burning fossil fuels. Now we learn Schneiderman may be gunning for more than just ExxonMobil…
    Read More “NY AG Schneiderman Launches the Climate Witch Trials”

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    Dictator-in-Chief B.H. Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline

    Dictators do as dictators want to do. Last week the U.S. Dictator (used to be called President), Barack Hussein Obama, decided to cave to his kook left enviro-Nazi fringe and rejected granting permits to build the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline–a pipeline that would flow oil from the tar sands of Canada all the way to the Gulf Coast for refining. It’s a huge blow to our relationship with our neighbors to the north and sets back U.S./Canadian relations by decades. It also prevents 20,000 jobs from being created. But dictators don’t care about any of those trifling details. They want what they want and you have to live with it–because you’re a serf. A dullard. You don’t know what kind of energy you should buy and use–so our Dear Leader will do it for you. No this isn’t a story about the Marcellus/Utica strictly speaking, but it is illustrative of what we are all up against–fossil fuel hysteria–the flames of which are fanned by people like Obama. Below is reaction from a number of senators, labor unions, the oil and gas industry and others to this travesty…
    Read More “Dictator-in-Chief B.H. Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline”

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    NY AG Targets/Accuses ExxonMobil of Lying about ‘Climate Change’

    Eric-Schneiderman.jpg
    Eric Schneiderman, NY AG

    We’ve written before about the lawless Attorney General from New York–Eric T. Schneiderman. He attacks his own constituents like landowners in the state (see NY AG Schneiderman Files to Dismiss JLCNY Lawsuit Against Cuomo), threatened the Delaware River Basin Commission that he would sue them if they allowed fracking (see NY AG Schneiderman Threatens New DRBC Lawsuit over Fracking), and he regularly bullies oil and gas companies (see NY Attorney General Schneiderman Subpoenas Shale Drillers and More on NY AG Schneiderman’s Bullying of Anadarko & EOG Resources). Schneiderman has just performed a breathtaking act of chutzpah: He’s launched an investigation and subpoenaed ExxonMobil, the largest oil company in the United States (4th largest in the world), accusing them of making false statements about so-called man-made global warming. He’s saying they contribute to global warming and they’re lying about their role in it–that they’ve made false statements to the public that contradict what their own internal research has found. That is, he is using the same strategy used against tobacco companies 20 years ago…
    Read More “NY AG Targets/Accuses ExxonMobil of Lying about ‘Climate Change’”

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    2 Anti-Drilling Dems Soundly Defeated in Mars School District Vote

    My Favorite MartianTwo anti-drilling parents who are agitating to strip away private property rights from their neighbors in Middlesex Township, PA–Amy Nassif and Patrice Tomcik–were soundly defeated in their run for the Mars School District board of education. MDN told you back in June that three Martians tried to get on the ballot, but only two made it (see Anti-Drilling Martians Running for School Board in November). The two Democrats who made it, Nassif and Tomcik, are part of an anti-drilling cabal attempting to stop the legally permitted Rex Energy from drilling several gas wells some 3/4 of a mile from the school on the false premise that by doing so they will endanger the kiddies. The other voters in the Mars School District have said “Enough!” with a very loud voice. It’s obvious there’s overwhelming support to move ahead with drilling. Unfortunately the matter is currently tied up in court (see Landowner Lawsuit Against Martians NOT Dismissed After All). Here’s the good news story that the Martian Democrats were soundly defeated in Tuesday’s election…
    Read More “2 Anti-Drilling Dems Soundly Defeated in Mars School District Vote”

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    Bought & Paid For: NY Anti-Drilling Researcher Gets $1.25M Grant

    There’s a new thing going around–it’s called “advocacy science.” And boy oh boy does it ever pay big bucks! Here’s how it works: Attend an Ivy League school like Cornell, do some “research” with a pre-determined outcome (i.e. ignore real science), wait a few years–and collect $1.25 million?! That’s how it worked out for Elaine Hill, currently a University of Rochester Medical Center researcher who did sloppy research that she published as a Cornell student (without peer review) in 2012. The “study” found babies born near fracked wells are allegedly more likely to have low birth weights than those not born near fracked wells (see her paper here). Later studies that grabbed headlines used her work as its foundation (see MSC Devastating Critique of “Low Birth Weight Near Fracking” Study). Hill is now being richly rewarded for her efforts in aiding the anti-drilling cause. The National Institutes of Health (your tax dollars at work) have just awarded Hill–yes Hill, one person–a staggering $1.25 million grant to do more “research.” In essence, she’s set for life. Bought and paid for. A millionaire. All it took was trading on the name of Cornell University and ignoring real science to get there. Here’s the kicker–her degree isn’t in biochemistry or biology or medicine or any hard science. Hill’s degree is in economics…
    Read More “Bought & Paid For: NY Anti-Drilling Researcher Gets $1.25M Grant”

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    Cove Point Protesters Disrupt Monday Night Football Game on TV

    Cove Point Protesters2The crazies have done it again. Did you happen to watch Monday Night Football this past Monday? It was the Indianapolis Colts playing the Carolina Panthers at the Bank of America stadium in Charlotte, NC. During the game, protesters of the Dominion Cove Point LNG plant “dramatically” rappelled from an upper deck and unfurled a banner that said “BoA: Dump Dominion”. Note that the teams are from North Carolina and Indiana, nothing to do with Maryland where the Cove Point plant is. The only tie-in is the stadium is named after Bank of America and BoA has some financial/commercial connection to Dominion. In fact, 99.9% of the people in the stadium or watching by television didn’t even know what was meant by the banner! The protesters not only endangered themselves, they endangered the people underneath them. What if the protesters had fallen? No, we’re not concerned for the nutjobs if they had Darwined themselves and dropped like a rock. We’re concerned about the people underneath them. What if the banner had fallen on people? What if a shoe had flown off one of these nutters and hit a baby on the head? The protesters finally came down and were promptly arrested for their crime…
    Read More “Cove Point Protesters Disrupt Monday Night Football Game on TV”

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    WVU Professor “All In” on Obama’s Coal-Killing Clean Power Plan

    James Van Nostrand
    James Van Nostrand

    When liberal Democrat James Van Nostrand, director for West Virginia University’s Center for Energy and Sustainable Development, associate professor of law at West Virginia University, and a man-made global warming Kool Aid drinker addressed a recent forum at Wheeling Jesuit University, he told the audience they should just accept President Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) and its death sentence for the coal industry. He essentially said “just get over it and move on. Lie down and admit defeat.” It put a smile on Van Nostrand’s face that WV Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has appeared to cave and will pursue a plan to comply with our Dear Leader’s CPP directive, even though 26 states have sued to stop the plan, including WV (see 26 States Ask Federal Court to Shut Down Clean Power Plan Now). Here’s an overview of Van Nostrand’s “just admit you’ve been beaten” speech…
    Read More “WVU Professor “All In” on Obama’s Coal-Killing Clean Power Plan”

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    Philly Enviro-Nazis Attack Dem Councilman for Visiting Drill Site

    geenaziA story in Philadelphia Magazine perfectly illustrates the Nazi-like control freaks that inhabit anti-fossil fuel organizations like Food and Water Watch and the fringe group Action United. Philadelphia City Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. is a bone fide, card-carrying liberal Democrat. In 2011 Jones called for a fracking moratorium in the Delaware River Basin. Since that time Jones has actively advocated for no fracking/drilling in the Philadelphia region. Four years ago the Marcellus Shale Coalition invited Jones (and others) to tour a drilling rig, to see how it’s done. At the time, he declined. It’s always so much easier when you stick your head in…the sand. But Jones is a member of the Philadelphia Gas Commission, the group that oversees the city-owned Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW). A recent audit recommends PGW buy more Marcellus Shale gas (see Expensive Audit Tells PGW to Buy More PA Shale Gas to Save Money). So Jones, being on the Gas Commission responsible for overseeing PGW, felt it would be worthwhile to go ahead and take that rig tour and learn the facts for himself first-hand rather than relying on second-hand opinions. So Jones agreed to attend a tour last Friday. He even allowed his name to be put on the invite to encourage others to “go see for yourselves” just what happens at a drilling rig. And that, dear reader, is anathema to the wackos at groups like Food and Water Watch, the Sierra Club, THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Action United, on and on and on. Actually touring a rig and learning that this activity is safe, and advantageous, and not the environmental holocaust it’s made out to be? That blows their lies right out of the water and they can’t have that. And so Food and Water Watch, along with Action United, attacked one of their own–Curtis Jones–for the simple act of visiting a drill site to see it for himself…
    Read More “Philly Enviro-Nazis Attack Dem Councilman for Visiting Drill Site”

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    PA DEP Sec. Quigley Calls Pipeline Protesters “Badly Misinformed”

    misinformedAbout 20 hippie retreads showed up in Harrisburg, PA on Wednesday to protest outside of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) regional office in Harrisburg to protest the fourth meeting of Gov. Tom Wolf’s Pipeline Infrastructure Taskforce. In May Gov. Wolf announced he was forming a taskforce to study and make recommendations on how the state can better work with (i.e. control) where local gathering pipelines are installed (see Disaster on the Horizon: PA Gov Wolf Creates Pipeline Task Force). DEP Secretary John Quigley packed the task force with 42 members, most of them government employees (beholden to Wolf/Quigley for their jobs) as well as some from the “environmental” community and a few from the pipeline industry (see PA Gov Wolf Packs Pipeline Task Force with His Own Minions). The gang of 42 was meeting for the fourth time in an effort to complete a draft report by mid-November. Some of the best and brightest gathered outside, including THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum, to protest. Quigley called the assembled antis “badly misinformed”…
    Read More “PA DEP Sec. Quigley Calls Pipeline Protesters “Badly Misinformed””

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    Anti Groups Try to Convince EPA They Got it Wrong with Water Study

    wrongHoping to get one more squeeze and a few more drops of juice out of news that’s now years old, the odious Earthworks and equally odious Food & Water Watch organized a protest rally in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday and trotted out the same old tired, lying anti-drillers from Dimock, PA, Pavillion, WY and Parker County, TX to “demand” that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) simply dump the findings of their four-year study that concluded fracking doesn’t pollute water supplies (see EPA Draft Report Says Fracking Doesn’t Pollute Groundwater Supplies). Anti-fossil fuel organizations like Earthworks and FWW about had a conniption fit when the EPA announced that after turning over every stone, pebble and spec of sand, they couldn’t find proof that fracking contaminates groundwater supplies. So the only thing they could do was to condemn the EPA. But therein lies the problem–because the EPA colludes with these same groups on sue-and-settle court cases all the time. They’re friends. They’re buddies. So falling out with the EPA leads to being conflicted. The planets are not properly aligned. How to resolve it? Convince the EPA with protests and pressure that they were wrong. They did it wrong. They ignored some of their own research and reseachers and came to the wrong conclusion. “Just admit you were wrong and everything will be OK. We’ll forgive you.” That’s what the “rally” was about on Wednesday in DC…
    Read More “Anti Groups Try to Convince EPA They Got it Wrong with Water Study”

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    PA Big Green Groups Elated: Latest EPA Sue-and-Settle Scam Worked

    scam alertA gang of Big Green groups are tickled pink–or is it tickled “green”–that their continuous frivolous lawsuits against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have once again yield the desired result. Radical leftist “green” groups like Earthworks, Environmental Integrity Project, THE Delaware Riverkeeper, and yes, PennFuture (where PA’s current Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley, used to work), had previously sued the federal EPA to force onerous new reporting rules on natural gas processing plants, using lies about the kinds of air pollutants released by the plants. The EPA cooperates with these sleazy organizations in a “sue and settle” scam. “Hey, you sue us for this, a liberal judge will ‘make us’ do it–then we can bypass Congress and everyone else and set up our own laws outside of that stupid old Constitution.” That’s how these groups collude with the EPA (see Environmentalists & Government Collude in “Sue and Settle” Cases). So a group of Big Green groups mostly located in PA were elated when the EPA confirmed their latest sue-and-settle scam had worked. So elated they issued a press release doing a happy dance–loaded up with yet more lies about the oil and gas industry. We bring you their press release below to (a) point out how many sleazy Big Green groups are engaging in this nefarious activity from the Marcellus/Utica region, and (b) point out the incestuous nature of these groups–with people like John Quigley now actually (fantastically) in charge of regulating the oil and gas industry in PA–although he used to actively work against that same industry when he worked for PennFuture…
    Read More “PA Big Green Groups Elated: Latest EPA Sue-and-Settle Scam Worked”

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    Youngstown Halloween Scare: the CELDF Ballot Initiative

    HalloweenHere’s something that should scare the #$%@ out of you this Halloween: the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). The CELDF, based in Pennsylvania, is attempting to interfere in other states like Ohio by fleecing local governments into believing they can pass so-called community bill of rights legislation (i.e. “home rule” laws). Problem is, the local communities who have tried it keep getting sued, and losing in court–and taxpayers end up paying tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees in an empty gesture to make a statement opposing shale energy. Our friends at Energy in Depth have put together a video for this Halloween that exposes the CELDF and should scare you to death, especially if you live in Youngstown, OH where a CELDF ballot initiative will be on the ballot this November (next week), for the FIFTH TIME…
    Read More “Youngstown Halloween Scare: the CELDF Ballot Initiative”

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    Delaware Riverkeeper Scams FERC in Review of PennEast Pipeline

    scam alertTHE Delaware Riverkeeper is running a scam on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). By all accounts it is a legal scam–but a scam nonetheless. FERC has a process known as a motion to intervene. Individuals, towns and organizations with a vested, legitimate interest can file to “intervene” in a project application–like the PennEast Pipeline. PennEast recently filed their application, so those people who may be affected can file to intervene–offer comments to FERC and remain updated by FERC–to ensure FERC hears and addresses the information and concerns of people with a vested, legitimate interest. Typically an intervenor might be a township where the pipeline is planned to run, or perhaps a farmer with a concern that a pipeline will destroy a good hay field. If you just want to mouth off about fossil fuels and fracking and evil pipelines–send a comment to FERC. They get mountains of them for every project. Here’s the scam: Riverkeeper recently ran “intervenor training” in an attempt to get as many people as possible to sign up as intervenors, including children, thereby overloading FERC’s ability to keep track of it all and respond to it all–slowing down the approval process for PennEast. As a fringe benefit, the more intervenors who register, the more the media makes a big deal out of it. It’s all a scam. It’s a setup. And we expose it below…
    Read More “Delaware Riverkeeper Scams FERC in Review of PennEast Pipeline”

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    Mass. Attorney General Continues Campaign Against NED Pipeline

    Maura Healey
    MA AG Maura Healey

    Does the shrill-sounding Massachusetts Attorney General, Maura Healey, belong to any radical environmental groups like the Sierra Club? Because she sure sounds like she does. Healey is doing everything in her power (and she wields a lot of power) to inject herself into the federal government’s role of approving or not approving Kinder Morgan’s proposed Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project–a project that would stretch from Pennsylvania into New York, through Massachusetts into New Hampshire and finally back into Massachusetts near Boston. It is a mammoth $5.5 billion project meant to address the economic hardship situation in New England where they pay 4x what other areas of the country pay for electricity and natural gas. Yet the shrill-sounding Healey continues to file letter after letter with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the agency tasked with reviewing the project, hoping she can convince them to reject the pipeline. Healey is one of the many unreasonable (not able to be reasoned with) anti-fossil fuelers against the project–because it’s a fossil fuel. Here’s her latest tirade, filed with FERC last Friday, the last day for public comments on the NED project…
    Read More “Mass. Attorney General Continues Campaign Against NED Pipeline”