Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel

  • | | |

    Anti-Drilling Cabal Issues Biased Report on Marcellus/Utica Jobs

    A collection of highly partisan anti-drillers (people who abjectly hate fossil fuels) get together and issue a “report” that claims to be backed by “research” (a few interviews with a few people in a few counties), and it’s instantly news. The officious sounding and never before heard from Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative has just issued a report saying, “Nah, the Marcellus and Utica Shale industry doesn’t create all that many jobs after all.” Er, right. Who is the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative? A group of five anti-drilling groups who use the word “nonpartisan” so many times if we had a nickle for every time it appears on their websites…you get the idea. This new league of anti-drillers (“cabal” about pegs it) attempts to appear nonpartisan and above it all. They are not. They are completely partisan on the issue of drilling. How do we know? Look at who funds them and their so-called research on employment: The Heinz Endowments, Hillsdale Fund, Park Foundation, and Stoneman Family Foundation. Need we say more?

    Below are the press release and the full report issued by the cabal. It’s not really worth anyone’s time to read it–we present it to you so you are informed of the latest coordinated and scripted attack against shale drilling–so when you see Reuters/Bloomberg/AP/Gannett et all pick it up and breathlessly report it as real news, you’ll know what you’re looking at. Just more propaganda from the usual suspects…
    Read More “Anti-Drilling Cabal Issues Biased Report on Marcellus/Utica Jobs”

  • | | |

    NJ Antis Say Delaware River May See Barged Frack Wastewater

    This was predictable. The radical Sierra Club (of New Jersey) and other anti-drilling organizations including the New Jersey Environmental Federation, Environment New Jersey and the always rabidly anti-drilling Delaware Riverkeeper have joined forces in a coordinated attack against the U.S. Coast Guard’s proposal to allow barges to carry frack wastewater on America’s waterways–including the mighty Delaware River.

    Never mind that barges containing chemicals far more deadly than frack wastewater make their way up and down our rivers every day (including the Delaware)–right now. Anti-drillers conveniently don’t mention that little fact. They just want fracking wastewater to be banned, because they want fracking banned, because fracking leads to more drilling and use of that awful, nasty, horrible fossil fuel, natural gas…
    Read More “NJ Antis Say Delaware River May See Barged Frack Wastewater”

  • | | | | |

    Scranton Area TU Chapter Hears about New Tactic to End Drilling

    As MDN pointed out a few days ago, anti-drilling members of the anti-drilling Trout Unlimited (TU) have changed tactics (see TU: If You Can’t Beat Shale Drillers, Try a New Lie). Instead of calling for an outright ban on Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania, they’ve decided to call for over-regulation–attempting to make their requests sound reasonable and fair. The intent is still the same: stop drilling any way you can.

    TU community agitator organizer Paula Piatt traveled from Mifflin County (central PA) to Lackawanna County (northeast PA) to spread the “let’s regulate them to death” message yesterday…
    Read More “Scranton Area TU Chapter Hears about New Tactic to End Drilling”

  • |

    Gender Equality and Global Warming Linked – Who Knew?

    We don’t know whether to laugh or cry. We don’t often talk about so-called climate change (i.e. global warming) because it’s not popular to say you don’t believe the science supports it. (You do know the earth hasn’t been warming for 15 years now, right?) When you dare to say such things in polite company you’re viewed as the modern-day equivalent of a hillbilly snake handler–unschooled, uncouth and unintelligent. Whatever. Our current let’s-poke-fun-at-the-warmers comes from a press announcement we received for something called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – COP (Conference of the Parties) 19–also known as  “UNFCCC COP 19”–currently underway in Warsaw, Poland. Stick with us, there is a (funny) point.

    The press announcement MDN received has this headline: WOMEN TAKE ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND GENDER EQUALITY. Well there’s a first–for us. Who knew that climate change and gender equality were scientifically linked? What does “gender equality” have to do with so-called climate change, anyway? Being climate change-challenged and unschooled and unintelligent, we were eager to learn, so we read on…
    Read More “Gender Equality and Global Warming Linked – Who Knew?”

  • | | | | |

    TU: If You Can’t Beat Shale Drillers, Try a New Lie

    An interesting twist. Apparently the devout anti-drilling group Trout Unlimited has at least one leader and one chapter that isn’t quite so anti-drilling. Either that or they’re trying a new tactic: bald-faced lying (wouldn’t be the first time).

    At a local Penns Creek chapter meeting of TU in Lewistown, PA, Paula Piatt, a “sportsmen organizer” for the group said she doesn’t want to tell landowners not to lease and not to drill–well, she really does want to tell them that, but she isn’t, not right now anyway. No, what she does want to tell them is this is how you should drill. To which we say, the utter arrogance of these people….
    Read More “TU: If You Can’t Beat Shale Drillers, Try a New Lie”

  • | | | |

    Berks County, PA Hosts Pipeline “Education” Forum – LOL

    A supposedly non-partisan “pipeline education forum” was held yesterday in Berks County, PA (near Philadelphia)–payed for with taxpayer money and hosted/organized by the Berks County League of [Liberal Democrat] Women Voters. To their credit, the League had two pro-drillers on the panel: someone from utility giant UGI and someone from Spectra Energy. But the rest of the panel was packed with anti-drillers, like a rep from the rabidly anti-drilling Delaware Riverkeeper and the anti-drilling director of the so-called Pipeline Safety Coalition, based in neighboring Chester County. They were there to scare the *&@# out of attendees.

    Such is “fair and balanced” from the “non-partisan-doesn’t-take-a-position” League. Excuse us as we pick ourselves up off the ground from laughing so hard…
    Read More “Berks County, PA Hosts Pipeline “Education” Forum – LOL”

  • | | | |

    Ithaca, NY Bank Won’t Grant Mortgage on Land with Drilling Lease

    New York landowners who are pro-drilling may want to consider whether or not to continue doing business with Tompkins Financial Corporation, a bank/wealth management/insurance firm based in Ithaca, NY. Why? They refuse to give a mortgage on any property under lease with a drilling company. They’re attempting to blame federal guidelines from Fannie Mae as their excuse. Sorry Charlie, that doesn’t fly. It’s anti-drilling prejudice plain and simple.

    Two other banks you may want to reconsider doing business with: Spain’s Santander Bank and State Employees’ Credit Union in Raleigh, N.C. Same reason…
    Read More “Ithaca, NY Bank Won’t Grant Mortgage on Land with Drilling Lease”

  • | | | | |

    OH Energy Co Sues 2 Anti-Drillers for Defamation – and Wins!

    Finally! An energy-related company in the Utica Shale with a backbone. A couple of anti-drillers thought they would get away with defaming the good name of Duck Creek Energy, a company that manufactures a road deicer and dust suppressant from processed brine water produced from oil and gas wells. Brine is not frack wastewater but naturally occurring water from the depths that has a lot of minerals it (saltier than sea water). Brine comes out long after frack wastewater has been removed. When processed, brine is perfectly safe and can be used for productive things like deicer and dust suppression on roadways. Duck Creek Energy has been manufacturing their deicer for 10 years now.

    The defaming anti-drillers claimed the substance being sold by Duck Energy was leftover frack wastewater and contained dangerous chemicals and radiation. Duck Creek Energy sued them and won, shutting them up from telling the outrageous lies they had been spinning…
    Read More “OH Energy Co Sues 2 Anti-Drillers for Defamation – and Wins!”

  • | |

    Eco-Nut Investor Groups Trot Out Faux Report on Fracking “Risks”

    Last week four anti-drilling groups, who also happen to have gobs of money (investor groups), issued an anti-drilling “report” and “scorecard” titled Disclosing the Facts: Transparency and Risk in Hydraulic Fracturing Operations. The so-called “report” supposedly shows drillers, many of them active in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, are not fully disclosing the nebulous “impacts” of fracking on communities near where they drill. The aim of the four organizations issuing the report–As You Sow, Boston Common Asset Management, Green Century Capital Management, and the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN)–is to get investors to stop investing in oil and gas companies and instead invest in their companies (i.e. mutual funds) because they back “renewable” and “sustainable” energy. Anyone else see a big, fat conflict of interest here?

    Of course mainstream media (like Bloomberg) dutifully and unquestioningly regurgitates the press release and so-called “report” from these anti-drillers as real news. Below is the press release and the “report” itself, in case you care. We bring it to you to show you a glittering example of what charlatan propaganda looks like…
    Read More “Eco-Nut Investor Groups Trot Out Faux Report on Fracking “Risks””

  • | | | | | |

    NY Dems’ Testy Response to Criticism of Andy’s Fracking Indecision

    T-shirt caution easily offendedThis is rich. The head of the Republican Party in New York State, Ed Cox, criticizes Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the issue of his impotency on the fracking issue (see Andrew Cuomo: Hamlet on the Shale), and the Democrats are so thin-skinned they immediately call for an investigation of Cox for “unethical or potentially illegal” actions. You can tell how vulnerable Andy and the Dems are on this issue by the way they misuse their power to try and obliterate all dissenting views.

    Democrat State Sen. Timothy Kennedy of Buffalo is the latest shill to rise up and defend his boy Andy, calling for an investigation of Cox…
    Read More “NY Dems’ Testy Response to Criticism of Andy’s Fracking Indecision”

  • | | | | |

    Economic Suicide Avoided in 2 OH Cities but Oberlin Pulls Trigger

    A happy note about yesterday’s elections in Ohio. Two communities where a so-called “community bill of rights” (anti-drilling ban flying under a different name) was on the ballot was voted down. In Youngstown (Mahoning County) this was the second time anti-drillers have tried to convince voters to commit economic suicide, but fortunately they didn’t (see Economic Suicide Attempt #2: Youngstown to Vote Again on Frack Ban). The voters in Bowling Green (Wood County) also decided to vote down a ban–even though there is no recoverable Utica Shale under Bowling Green. Freedom is always a smart choice–good decision Bowling Green.

    However, voters in a third OH community, Oberlin (Lorain County), where there likely is recoverable Utica Shale gas, sadly decided to pull the trigger and commit economic suicide…
    Read More “Economic Suicide Avoided in 2 OH Cities but Oberlin Pulls Trigger”

  • | |

    Buy This Fracking Album – MDN Version

    As a stuffed replica of Pete Seeger shuffles out onto the stage…wait, no! That really IS Pete Seeger, about 150 years old now (too ornery to die), out there peddling a new master work of artistic quality…OK, it IS Pete Seeger, so the music ain’t all that great. Pete is on stage hawking a new anti-fracking album, called Buy This Fracking Album, that he and some of his anti-fracking buds are cooking up right now. And it’s for a very worthy cause: an attempt to make a boatload of money from a bunch of suckers, er, call attention to the serious issue of fracking.

    This calls for a press release! And so Pete & co have issued one (below). We’ve inserted MDN snarky editorial comment a) for your reading enjoyment, and b) to set the record straight and tell the truth about this album and about fracking. Enjoy…
    Read More “Buy This Fracking Album – MDN Version”

  • | | |

    AP Apparatchik Attacks PA Republicans over NatGas

    The Pennsylvania Democrat Party, using their wholly-owned subsidiary–The Associated Press–issued the following piece of undisguised propaganda aimed at unsettling PA voters this week. It is a skewed bag of half-truths and lies aimed at smearing Gov. Tom Corbett and PA’s elected Republicans, implying they are in the back pocket of “big gas.”

    However, the only thing that’s “big gas” is what’s blowing out the Democrat/AP press machine…
    Read More “AP Apparatchik Attacks PA Republicans over NatGas”

  • | |

    USA Today Picks on Demon Carbon – Says Fracking Can’t Last

    This is what passes as “journalism” at Gannett. (Specifically with McNewspaper–otherwise known as USA Today.) Interview someone who is ideologically driven and rigid–someone who abjectly hates fossil fuels and works for a benign sounding “institute”–oh, say like the Post Carbon Institute. (What utter folly to name it that. How about the Post Oxygen Institute? Or the Post Hydrogen Institute? Why not pick one of the other low atomic number elements? Why pick on carbon? But we digress…) This so-called expert–who is nothing of the kind–tells USA Today he’s “studied” the drilling issue and has pronounced that fracking for gas and oil is a flash in the pan, a temporary phenomenon. It’ll all be over soon. Can’t be economical much longer. Let’s all move along to “sustainable energy” nirvana now.

    Then, just for good measure, sprinkle the story with a picture of two of people protesting fracking–you know, to convey the right impression that hordes of people are against this insane environmental rape of Mother Earth. Here’s the interesting thing: Ever notice the pictures they use of people protesting against fracking are always a shot of people protesting in New York State? Looks to us like it may even be the same 100-200 protesters! Same group, different angles, different events. Why is that, do you think? Could it be there are only a few hundred dedicated, full-time, paid (by groups like the Park Foundation) hippie wannabes people who travel around like Gypsies (or pot smoking Deadheads) doing this kind of protesting? JS–jest sayin’…
    Read More “USA Today Picks on Demon Carbon – Says Fracking Can’t Last”

  • | | |

    PA Anti-Drillers Shove Their Children Before the Microphones

    Whether or not drilling under county parks is a good idea or not, we’ll leave for another post. We’re not at all concerned about safety or pollution–it’s safe and it doesn’t pollute. It’s just a PR headache, though, to keep pushing the boulder uphill all the time–fighting rank ignorance and outright lies. At any rate, such proposals do exist including a proposal to drill under some of the parks in Allegheny County, PA (Pittsburgh area). The energy company in question, Huntley & Huntley, has floated a proposal to county officials. They want to drill under, not on, the parks–drill under them from adjacent non-park land.

    Well known anti-driller PA State Sen. Jim Ferlo convened a *@#!%-fest to complain about it. Nothing new there. What caught our eye about meeting, however, is the shameless way some anti-drillers use their own children as props–like pushing an 8 year-old in front of the cameras and microphones after filling her head with lies about how drilling will poison precious Mother Earth. It was on full display at yesterday’s Ferlo’s Follies…
    Read More “PA Anti-Drillers Shove Their Children Before the Microphones”

  • | | | |

    LNG Storage/Fueling Stations Latest Anti-Drilling Target in NY

    New York State is first in all of the things you don’t want to be first in–like having the highest unemployment and taxes of any state in the union–and dead last in all the things you don’t want to be last in. Example: New York is the only state that does not allow liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage and LNG fueling stations. Translation: All of those new trucking fleets being purchased by UPS and other companies can’t operate in New York because there’s no place to fuel up.

    LNG fueling stations have nothing to do with whether or not NY decides to allow fracking, but anti-drillers are attempting to make a connection anyway. A group of more than 100 anti-drillers piled into a hearing room in Albany yesterday to tell the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation they oppose the DEC’s plan to allow LNG storage and fueling stations. The usual crowd of hippie retreads from groups like Catskill Mountainkeeper and NY Public Interest Research Group showed up to mouth off–then they piled back into buses powered by dirty diesel fuel to head back to New York City from whence they came. Rank hypocrites, the lot of them…
    Read More “LNG Storage/Fueling Stations Latest Anti-Drilling Target in NY”