Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel

Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

The Urgent Case for a Ban on Food & Water Watch
September 18, 2014September 18, 2014

The anti-drilling nuts at Food & Water Watch (FWW) just keep getting nuttier. FWW is a highly partisan, highly anti-drilling non-profit that raises huge sums of money to fund faux research and efforts to get fracking, shale drilling–anything to do with fossil fuels–banned. We often refer to them as “odious” because that’s precisely what they are. They lie so often about shale drilling it’s hardly worth mentioning any more. Their lies aren’t doing the trick, so they’ve amped it up a notch and have just issued a brand new report titled, “The Urgent Case for a Ban on Fracking” (full copy below). Hence the title of this article. We think there’s a much stronger case to be made to ban FWW than to ban fracking…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Lebanon County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | UGI Energy Services | Williams

Pavlovian Opposition Continues Against PennEast, Atlantic Sunrise
September 17, 2014September 17, 2014

Whenever a major new interstate pipeline is proposed, especially in the northeast where more such pipelines are desperately needed, anti-drillers jump up and begin protesting immediately. It’s like a knee-jerk reaction–a Pavlov’s dog experiment gone awry. They don’t even know why they oppose it–they just do. Can’t help themselves. And so earlier this week we have two anti-pipeline meetings–one in New Jersey against the PennEast Pipeline project, the other in Pennsylvania against the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. Whenever these nuts gather their conversation turns to the shrill and irrational. Try this one on. The proposed PennEast Pipeline will “cut a wide ‘virgin’ path along the entire western edge of the county” in Hunterdon County, NJ, according to Sierra Clubers at an anti-pipeline meeting on Monday. Kind of conjures up rape, does it not? That’s just what they intend with their incendiary language…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Centre County | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania

‘Marcellus Shale Documentary Project’ opens Sept. 23 @ Penn State
September 17, 2014September 17, 2014

Penn State will debut the “Marcellus Shale Documentary Project” in State College, PA on Sept. 23 at the Palmer Museum of Art. We don’t know for certain, but we’re 99.9% sure this is more anti-drilling clap trap dressed up as a serious pursuit of the truth behind the Marcellus. The project “features photographic images that tell the personal stories of Pennsylvanians affected by the Marcellus Shale gas industry.” As part of this “important” new exhibition, a series of events are planned, referred to as a “museum crawl” (something like a pub crawl, only you get drunk on “art” instead of booze). A panel discussion to bash fossil fuels and “extractive industries” will happen in late October as part of the project. The panel is being sponsored (paid for) by Penn State, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, and something called The Rock Ethics Institute. Bet you didn’t know that rocks have ethics, did you?…
Read More “‘Marcellus Shale Documentary Project’ opens Sept. 23 @ Penn State”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | GreenHunter Resources | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Athens, OH Anti-Frackers Demand Army Corps Count Each Form Letter
September 16, 2014September 16, 2014

The silly (and vacuous) “protesters” who don’t want GreenHunter to build a barge facility on the Ohio River (where there are what, dozens, hundreds of such facilities?) think that if they can convince enough like-minded (we use the term “minded” loosely) anti-fossil fuelers to sign their John Hancock on form letters that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should count each form letter individually instead of lumping them together. So instead of a “massive” 4,000 form letters received, the Corps records getting “fewer than 1,000” so-called protest letters against the wastewater barge facility. Appearances and raw numbers are all that matter to the carbon energy-allergic members of the Athens County Fracking Action Network (ACFAN). What’s the answer for this small group of people whose lives have no meaning apart from being against something? According to ACFAN and their odious backers at Food & Water Watch–sign more form letters to demand the Corps count their previous form letters!…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | Regulation | Tennessee Gas Pipeline

MA Town Health Board Claims “Unlimited Power” to Stop TGP
September 15, 2014September 15, 2014

Who knew the U.S. Constitution had a clause in it that grants the Deerfield, Massachusetts town health board “unlimited power” to do what they want to do. That’s what Cristobal Bonifaz, a lawyer from Conway, MA, is claiming. Even though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to federal law, is the sole agency charged with granting or withholding permission on interstate pipelines, Bonifaz says the Deerfield health board has “unlimited power” to do what they want, and he’s volunteering to be their attorney in attempting to stop the expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline through the township. How?…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Antis Take Aim at PA Drillers for Not Hiring Enough Minorities, Women
September 15, 2014September 15, 2014

We seriously wonder if PBS reporterette Marie Cusick, who writes anti-drilling diatribes on the Pennsylvania StateImpact website, has ever, herself, visited a Marcellus well pad. How else could she write an article pejoratively titled “Gas drillers still ignoring law to include women and minorities”? MDN has visited pads a number of times–and the thing that stood out to us was the number of women suited up in overalls working in the dirtiest jobs on the drill site. But let’s not let reality destroy a good work of “journalistic” fiction…
Read More “Antis Take Aim at PA Drillers for Not Hiring Enough Minorities, Women”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA | UGI Energy Services

Delaware Riverkeeper Petitons DRBC to Stop PennEast Pipeline
September 11, 2014September 11, 2014

THE Delaware Riverkeeper herself, the haughty and arrogant Maya van Rossum, has sent a letter to the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) “petitioning” (i.e. demanding) that the DRBC “exercise jurisdiction over the PennEast Pipeline Project.” You may recall that energy utility giant UGI along with three other partners announced a proposed pipeline that will run from Wilkes-Barre, PA all the way to Trenton, NJ to flow abundant, cheap Marcellus Shale gas to homes and businesses in southeastern PA and NJ (see 3rd New NEPA Marcellus Pipeline Proposed, Connects to Trenton, NJ). UGI and partners didn’t waste any time. They recently completed a successful open season on the $1 billion PennEast Pipeline to sign up potential customers (see Successful Open Season Concludes for Marcellus PennEast Pipeline). Now along comes Miss Muffet sitting on her tuffet to try and throw her curds and whey on the process (see her letter below). If van Rossum can convince the DRBC to get involved, she stands a good chance of blocking the PennEast Pipeline from ever getting built…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

NY Gov Cuomo Comments on Fracking, Hounding by Protesters
September 10, 2014September 10, 2014

He speaks! The man-child Andrew Cuomo, erstwhile (and rumored) Governor of New York, someone who has a problem making decisions (should I wear the black tie or the blue tie?), had to run a small gauntlet of anti-drilling protesters to cast his ballot in yesterday’s statewide primary. Cuomo, as we’ve chronicled for years, refuses to allow fracking in New York ahead of this November’s election. The betting money is that he will allow it after the election. When asked about the anti-drilling protesters outside the polling place, Cuomo uttered an entire paragraph on the topic–more than he’s said in a year…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Northampton County | Pennsylvania

NY’s Steingraber to Keynote Lafayette College Anti-Frack Festival
September 10, 2014September 10, 2014

Lafayette College will hold an anti-fracking event under the very thin veneer of coming together to “examine the issue from all sides” at a two-day symposium next week in Easton, PA. Lafayette College’s 2014 Roethke Festival will be held Sept. 19-20 and the keynote address will be delivered by none other than New York’s own queen anti-fossil fuel advocate, Sandra Steingraber (see Sandra Steingraber’s Big Gaffe at You Defend It Debate). MDN has heard Steingraber in person a couple of times. She actually believes we could (in NY anyway) shut off all fossil fuels–today–and rely totally on so-called alternative sources of energy like wind and solar. How? If only we had the “political will” to, you know, turn our thermostats down to 50 degrees in the winter, go back to using horse and buggy and otherwise go back to living like folks did in the 19th century. In our book she’s certifiably nuts. Another headliner at the Lafayette anti-fracking fest will be little known anti-drilling author Lamar Herrin who wrote a novel about fracking creatively titled “Fractures.” He’s going to read from his book (yawn). A token pro-driller will be on one panel–the always excellent David Yoxtheimer from Penn State. If we were you, we’d give this “coming together” a big, fat pass and instead head off to a good music festival somewhere…
Read More “NY’s Steingraber to Keynote Lafayette College Anti-Frack Festival”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Cuyahoga County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation

Gates Mills, OH Caves – Anti-Frack Measure on Nov. Ballot
September 9, 2014September 9, 2014

The very exclusive and uppity Cleveland suburb of Gates Mills, OH is the latest community to fall prey to the misnamed, so-called community bill of rights that seeks to ban all drilling on, under or near property in the community. We’ve written about Gates Mills before (see these MDN stories). We originally chided Gates Mills Mayor Shawn Riley for concocting a plan that we thought would prevent drilling in the community (a community that already has some conventional wells in it). We were contacted by an MDN reader and by Mayor Riley to correct us: His intent is to pool landowners together and together (somewhat akin to a landowner coalition) to develop a contract that would strictly control how, when and where any Utica drilling would be done. He’s not anti-drilling–just really really careful and infrequent drilling. But there are a number of anti-drillers in town who want nothing to do with it whatsoever–and they want to force their preferences on their neighbors too. That’s what a “community bill of rights” does–it forces anti-drilling regulations down everyone’s throat. That’s what will be on the ballot in November in Gates Mills…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

JLCNY “David” Goes Up Against Park Foundation “Goliath”
September 8, 2014September 8, 2014

MDN recently received the following fundraising letter from the 70,000-member Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY). The JLCNY runs on a shoestring budget. Although many landowners belong to the JLCNY “umbrella” organization through local landowner groups, most of them do not contribute money to the JLCNY. The JLCNY has been on the front lines of the fight to get shale drilling authorized in New York. As they point out in the letter, it’s a real David and Goliath kind of struggle–with mom and pop landowners as David and Park Foundation-backed liberal enviro groups (and their minions) as Goliath. The happy thought we had in reading the letter below is that we know how the original David & Goliath story turns out–the one from 3,000 years ago. Let’s hope we get a repeat with the shale drilling struggle, which right now seems hopeless, in New York State…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues

The Intellectual Incest of Anti-Drilling Groups
September 8, 2014September 8, 2014

The anti-drilling world is fairly small and intellectually incestuous. Members of virulent anti-drilling groups who irrationally hate fossil fuels–groups like Damascus Citizens for Sustainability (DCS) and the Sierra Club–send emissaries from one group to the other to gripe and complain and tell each other “if only” all of us dumb bumpkins would get with the program we could have so-called alternative energy nirvana right now. They also tell each other how evil and nasty fossil fuels are and how horrible shale drilling is. Looks like it’s time for another gripefest. The DCS is sending one of their own to a local chapter of the New Jersey Sierra Club (some of the nuttiest of the nuts) to commiserate on the evils of fossil fuels…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Regulation

Philly Inquirer Exposes PennFuture Lies in Lycoming County Case
September 5, 2014September 5, 2014

Yesterday MDN brought you the news that the virulently anti-drilling PennFuture was crowing about another scalp their lawyers have claimed in preventing fracking in Lycoming County, PA (see Bad PA Supreme Court Act 13 Decision Comes Home to Roost). We’ve often told you about the lying propaganda pumped out by PennFuture. Our words certainly don’t bother them. But we bet the words of none other than the Philadelphia Inquirer do bother them. The Inquirer is also out with a story about the challenge by PennFuture and a couple of ninny nanny “neighbors” (more than 2/3 of a mile away) who abused the recent Supreme Court decision to force the town to not allow the drilling it wants to allow. The Inquirer skewers PennFuture, pointing out the lies they tell…
Read More “Philly Inquirer Exposes PennFuture Lies in Lycoming County Case”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues

Soros Invests Big in Argentine Shale – No Comment from PAI
September 5, 2014September 5, 2014

Why is it that the nefarious anti-drilling Public Accountability Initiative (PAI), responsible for closing down a new shale institute at University at Buffalo (see Univ at Buffalo President Shuts Down (Censors) Shale Institute) and for making the University of Texas look foolish (see Soros-backed PAI Makes University of Texas Look Foolish), doesn’t take on their billionaire benefactor, George Soros himself? As we’ve previously written, Soros plays both sides of the fracking issue (see George Soros Plays Both Sides of Fracking Issue, for Profit). Word came out Wednesday that Soros is making yet another play to support fracking–this time in Argentia. And where is the PAI’s lampooning, castigating and otherwise demonizing of old George? Nowhere to be found. Crickets. Nothing. Why is that?…
Read More “Soros Invests Big in Argentine Shale – No Comment from PAI”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Earthquakes | Industrywide Issues | Mahoning County | Ohio | Statewide OH

Run for the Beach! The Hills are “Swarming” with Earthquakes!!
September 5, 2014September 5, 2014

Who knew that earthquakes can “swarm”–you know, like bees or locusts? That’s the absurd fearmongering nonsense being peddled by the nutters at Frackfree Mahoning Valley (Mahoning County, OH). They recently issued a press release (below) that says if wastewater injection wells are allowed to continue operating in Mahoning County, “swarms” of earthquakes will follow. Sounds almost biblical, doesn’t it?…
Read More “Run for the Beach! The Hills are “Swarming” with Earthquakes!!”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

Who Knew? “Massive” Marcellus is Drilled in “Two Dozen States”
September 4, 2014September 4, 2014

Wow, the Marcellus must have grown quite a bit overnight when no one was looking. According to a reporter at Newsday (Long Island newspaper, sixth largest regional newspaper in the country), “More than two dozen states permit drilling in the massive Marcellus Shale deposit.” Last time we checked there are three states drilling in the Marcellus: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. Most of it happens in two states: PA and WV. When reporters are that sloppy, it makes you wonder if anything else in the article is actually true. In this case, it’s an article about the differences of opinion by gubernatorial candidates in NY on whether or not to allow fracking in the Empire State…
Read More “Who Knew? “Massive” Marcellus is Drilled in “Two Dozen States””