Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA
Leftist Enviro Groups Ask PA EQB to Ban Fracking via Bigger Setbacks
Yesterday, the radicalized Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project filed a rulemaking petition with the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB) asking the EQB to increase minimum setback distances from fracked wells. Setbacks, also referred to as protective buffers and no-drill zones in the context of fracking, are mandatory distances that fracked wells must abide by to keep them away from homes, schools, hospitals, drinking water wells, and surface water. PA already has a safe and sufficient setback of 500 feet. The groups want that increased by 650% to 3,281 feet. It would ban approximately 95% of all new shale wells in the state. Read More “Leftist Enviro Groups Ask PA EQB to Ban Fracking via Bigger Setbacks”
The Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) met yesterday to consider whether to allow fracking under (not on) two Ohio state-owned lands, including the Leesville Wildlife Area in Carroll County and Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County. Commissioners approved moving forward to the next step with Leesville, which is to accept bids. They also voted to delay a decision on more fracking under Salt Fork State Park. 
Last December, Murrysville (PA) Council members voted to lease land for shale drilling under two town parks—Duff Park and Murrysville Community Park (see 
What is happening in American politics is shocking. Unfortunately, we are so shocked almost daily that we’re (as a society) becoming numb to it. Never in the history of our country have the members of one political party sought to jail their political opponents. It’s happening now, and the party/movement in question comes from the left. Democrat elected officials in New York City and progressive advocacy groups are pushing New York City’s prosecutors to charge fossil fuel companies AND their executives with crimes for “reckless endangerment” for their supposed role in causing “climate change.” Never mind that the left can’t prove mankind is catastrophically causing global warming (which is what they mean by climate change). They seek to jail people who disagree with them. It’s astonishing. 
It seems the left’s proclamations that it had “won” the so-called “war on coal” were premature. So says none other than the lefties at Bloomberg. You may remember that Michael Bloomberg, the owner of the Bloomberg News Service, had donated over $1 billion to the odious (anti-American) Sierra Club in a bid to shut down every last coal-fired power plant in the United States. We’re far along the curve to completing that dubious goal. Except now, new coal-fired plants are popping up in other countries, and coal use is EXPANDING, not contracting. So, the only country truly harmed by Bloomberg’s mission is the United States. Bloomberg’s own news service is now admitting the truth—that coal is sticking around because without it, the lights would go out. 
For more than three years, MDN has called out the International Energy Agency (IEA) and its executive director, Dr. Fatih Birol, as nothing more than tools of Big Green. We’ve reported on many of the IEA’s fake predictions about peak demand for oil and natural gas (see 
The environmental left continues to try and co-opt the term “Evangelical Christian,” defined as protestants who tend to be pro-life and conservative in their political views. We’re talking about the so-called Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) and its political lobbying arm, EEN Action. The group continues to pressure Pennsylvania’s political leaders to adopt unreliable renewable energy (by government fiat) and to force residents to dump their use of fossil energy. We previously exposed them for who they really are (see 
The northeast, particularly New England, has some of the highest energy costs in the country. We are the poster child for inadequate fuel supplies and lack of energy. Yet we have embarrassing riches of energy under our feet in the Marcellus/Utica! The problem? “The Northeast is the most extreme example of demand/supply mismatch in recent years, thanks to local court decisions and policy changes that have brought gas infrastructure developments to a screeching halt. Challenges facing the region will only persist, if not get worse until adequate infrastructure is built to bring energy into the region.” 
In May 2023, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced that it would convert the Kingston Fossil Plant (coal-fired plant) in East Tennessee to a natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 1,500 megawatts of electricity (see 
We read a story published last week that is frightening. It leaves us speechless, and that’s saying something. Just the News is reporting that the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) and several other publications and leftwing groups are behind a project called the “Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation,” which encourages reporters to insert climate change into every story and view fossil fuel industry voices as inherently dishonest. The project openly promotes the idea that journalists should NOT be objective when reporting on climate and energy but instead should be biased and revel in their bias. Speechless. 
If you live in Pennsylvania, particularly in an urban area, and happen to be black, Asian, or Native American, and you own an Apple product and like to do things outdoors, you can expect a knock on your door by the Democrat anti-shale/global warming squad hoping to recruit you to become a Kamala Harris zombie voter. The younger or older you are, the better (especially under 25 and over 65). The Dems never see people in all of their complexity as individuals who can be reasoned with rationally—they only see groups that can be herded given the right fear-tactic stimuli, like schoolyard bullies from the fourth grade. That’s how they hold on to power. 
You know you’re a loser when you can’t even spin the results of your own rigged push poll. The Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI) is nothing more than a front group, another name for the ultra-left, biased, and virulent anti-fossil fuel Heinz Endowments. ORVI pokes its head up periodically to issue “reports” (i.e., propaganda) bashing fossil energy. Sometimes, they conduct slanted push polls to try and further pollute the news with false claims, as was the case with a recent poll (with results released yesterday) by ORVI surveying 700 Pennsylvanian voters on the topic of fracking and energy. Interestingly, the ORVI couldn’t hide the fact that 58% of those surveyed (a strong majority) are opposed to banning fracking, and 75% support the continued use of natural gas. 
Parts of Ohio (like other areas in the northeast) have experienced a moderate drought over the past several months. The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) manages ten lakes and four dry dams in southeastern Ohio for purposes of flood control, recreation, and conservation. One of its biggest customers for water sales is the shale oil and gas industry. With the ongoing drought, MWCD recently stopped water sales from Atwood Lake, a popular boating and fishing spot southeast of Canton that has experienced a foot-and-a-half drop in water levels over the past few months. It is the only location where MWCD has had to stop water sales. 
California law firm Sher Edling received more than $3 million in unreported dark money to push high-profile climate litigation on behalf of dozens of Democratic-led cities and states, according to a congressional report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Sher Edling, the Senate Commerce Committee and House Oversight Committee report found, received $2.9 million last year from the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, a shadowy group managed by the New Venture Fund. Because the contributions were made in 2023, the New Venture Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based dark money organization, isn’t required to disclose its contributions until it files its next annual 990 form with the IRS in mid-November. 
A group of 41 members of Congress (4 Senators and 37 Congressmen/women) are asking Dept. of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm for information about the so-called “pause” in LNG export approvals. It appears the DOE relied on a prematurely released “study” by known anti-fossil fuel Cornell professor Robert Howarth as the scientific basis for imposing the pause (which is really a ban). The Congressfolks sent a blunt letter to the nutty Granholm requesting immediate answers to specific questions. Don’t hold your breath that the dysfunctional DOE will respond anytime soon.