PA DEP Aids Efforts by Antis to Establish 3,000+ Foot Setbacks
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is aiding and abetting radical environmental groups in circumventing the state legislature. In what amounts to a classic leftist “sue-and-settle” case, radical environmental groups (including the Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project) petitioned the state Environmental Quality Board (EQB), asking the board to amend 25 Pa. Code Chapter 78a by increasing “setbacks” for oil and gas well drilling to a minimum of 3,281 feet from any building or water wells (5,280 feet from hospitals and schools), and 750 feet from any river, creek, or mud puddle (i.e., surface waters). Such an increase in setbacks would stop ALL new shale drilling in the state, which is the goal of these radicals. The DEP ruled that the petition to the EQB was right and proper and should move forward. Read More “PA DEP Aids Efforts by Antis to Establish 3,000+ Foot Setbacks”
Living in New York State, as MDN editor Jim Willis does, is like watching a slow-motion train wreck. You can see it coming; you warn those nearby to get off the tracks and leave the area, but no one is listening. We’re talking about the coming brownouts and blackouts across the state (especially in New York City) due to the state’s climate policies blocking new natural gas-fired power plants. This past summer, Danskammer Energy, which operates a gas-fired peaker power plant along the Hudson River in Newburgh, NY, withdrew its request to expand the plant (see 
Dominion Energy plans to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see 
If you live in Québec, Canada, and you’re reading these words, you may want to move soon or risk freezing your derrière off in the winter because you will become a criminal if you try to heat your home or business with natural gas. The Commie province will allow folks to continue heating with so-called renewable natural gas (gas from cow and pig poop) after 2040. However, there’s not enough renewable gas to meet demand. Given the provincial government’s psychological crack with reality, we suspect that even the renewable gas loophole will be gone by the time 2040 rolls around. The government has banned the sale and installation of gas heaters in new residential constructions as of 2026. Québec is the perfect example of how free countries die and give birth to dictatorships. 
Fart vaccines, seaweed diets, burp-catching masks, ray guns, and baby kangaroo poop are just some of the crazy and nutty ways leftist global warming zealots are trying to save the earth from an overabundance of methane from cow farts and burps. And no, we’re not making any of this up or exaggerating! These people are really, truly, legitimately out of their minds. Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, is funding some of this asininity. Give a guy billions of dollars, and his brain turns to mush. 
In May, MDN told you that several Republican Pennsylvania State Senators were planning to introduce a bill to cut off millions of dollars in impact fee revenues to municipalities that set protective standards on the development of natural gas that “imposes a standard or condition on well development that conflicts with or exceeds those contained” in state law (see 
In January, Joe Biden announced he would “pause” any approvals for new LNG export plants, with over a dozen requests in the pipeline, for at least one year while his people fart around pretending to figure out how to measure global warming as a new consideration for whether or not to approve projects (see 
Earlier this week, three of five supervisors in Cecil Township (Washington County), PA, voted to ban all new fracking via a new setback (distance from well to nearest structure) requirement of 2,500 feet (see 
The election of Donald Trump as President for a second term is about the best thing that has happened for Big Green groups in years. Why? They all (and we mean ALL) are fundraising using Trump’s name, hoping to shake some more coins out of the faithful lemmings that contribute to their twisted causes. We’re talking about groups like Earthworks, Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, Environmental Defense Fund, National Resources Defense Council, and more. In our review of these groups’ websites and press announcements following Trump’s crushing victory, we noticed two things they all are doing: (1) fundraising to “fight Trump” and (2) pledging massive new rounds of lawfare against anything and everything the Trump administration does. Our message to these sickos: BRING IT ON! We’re ready for you this time. 
Nearly eight months ago, the New York Senate passed a bill the Assembly had previously passed to ban the use of carbon dioxide in shale drilling (so-called “CO2 fracking”). Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, a reliable anti-fossil fueler, still has not signed the bill into law. What the heck is going on? Why is she missing in action? We’ve written about this a few times, beginning two months after the bill was passed (
Williams’ Transco Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project expands the mighty Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. About 450,000 MMcf/d of the total capacity went online in late 2023 along Transco’s Leidy Line in Pennsylvania. Another 160 MMcf/d went online in PA and NJ in early July. On July 26, FERC granted Williams’s request to bring online the final 219 MMcf/d ahead of schedule (see