Mass. Takes First Steps to Dump NatGas, Commit Energy Suicide
Look for the steady flow of people moving out of Massachusetts to become a stampede. The state is floating new legislation that will outlaw the use of natural gas as energy. The first step is to block any new customers from connecting to gas. The next step is to forbid repairing gas infrastructure, forcing broken pipes to be replaced with alternatives like electricity or geothermal. Eventually, the liberal crazies running the state want to turn off all natural gas. We call it the clinical definition of insanity. Get out while you still can! Read More “Mass. Takes First Steps to Dump NatGas, Commit Energy Suicide”
Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a report exposing the Biden administration’s massive green group giveaway (copy of the report below). The EPA received $41 billion from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), legislation made possible by Joe Manchin’s vote and signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022 (see 
In September, the Board of Supervisors for Cecil Township in Washington County, PA, caved to pressure from radical leftists and, by a vote of 3-2, instructed the town’s solicitor to prepare a new zoning ordinance that increases setbacks from “protected structures” from 500 feet to 2,500 feet (half a mile), and add a setback of 5,000 feet from schools and hospitals (almost a full mile, see 
Last November, MDN brought you the news that pipeline giant Williams planned to proceed with a new Transco pipeline expansion project called the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project (see 
In May 2023, two radicalized Big Green groups—the Environmental Integrity Project (based in D.C.) and the Clean Air Council (based in Philadelphia)—filed a lawsuit against the Shell Polymers Monaca Plant (ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA), claiming the plant has repeatedly violated federal air pollution limits (see 
The Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline (owned by Enbridge) transports up to 3.09 Bcf/d of natural gas through 1,131 miles of pipeline. Algonquin connects to Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO), Millennium Pipeline, and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline and supplies New England with critically needed natural gas supplies for power generation and consumer use. We told you in September 2023 that Enbridge conducted an open season to gauge interest in expanding Algonquin’s capacity to flow more gas into New England — mainly from the Marcellus/Utica — called Project Maple (see 
Dominion Energy plans to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see 
Here we go again. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has put forth a proposal that would stop the city’s three pension funds from future private equity and infrastructure portfolio investments in midstream and downstream fossil fuel infrastructure like pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals. The prohibition would apply to New York City’s Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers’ Retirement System, and Board of Education Retirement System should their pension boards approve the decision. But here’s the thing… In May 2023, workers from those same three pension funds sued the funds to stop them from divesting from fossil energy companies (see 
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. 
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.”