Bill to Study (and Block) Gas Pipes Advances in Maine Legislature
In January, we told you the State of Maine was actively considering a new law, L.D. 2077, that would prohibit natural gas companies from charging ratepayers for the construction and expansion of gas service mains and gas service lines beginning Feb. 1, 2025 (see Maine Debates Democrat Bill to Limit New Natural Gas Customers). Under the bill, business and residential customers who seek new gas mains and service lines would pay the entire cost to hook up for the service themselves. In other words, nobody would pay to connect (far too expensive), resulting in a de facto ban on connecting new customers for natural gas service. However, the bill’s language was altered to remove that provision and instead require studying the issue of new pipelines (see Maine U-Turn: Bill Banning New Gas Hookups Changed to Study Issue). The “watered-down” bill was approved by the Maine House yesterday with a party-line vote.
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You have to hand it to the left. They never give up on their mission to destroy this country. Big Green groups using (abusing) six uppity Virginia landowners who didn’t want the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline to cross their well-groomed horse pastures have appealed a lawsuit recently dismissed by a federal court to the U.S. Supreme Court one last time. That is, if the Supremes decide to consider it again. It’s an open question if the Supremes will accept the case back.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, in mid-March to announce a proposal to “immediately pull Pennsylvania out of a multi-state carbon cap-and-trade program” (the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI) and instead enroll PA in its very own RGGI-like carbon tax program (see 
South Carolina House Bill H.5118, sponsored by S.C. House Speaker Murrell Smith, addresses the pressing need for more power generation in the Palmetto State in the wake of explosive population growth. H.5118 would establish specific timelines for the S.C. Public Service Commission (SCPSC) and other permitting agencies to rule on applications for all future projects, including gas-fired power plants. The legislation would also establish a streamlined process by which all future appeals go straight to the S.C. Supreme Court (which happens about 99% of the time). Yet radicalized leftist groups like Conservation Voters of South Carolina (CVSC) are having a heart attack, trying to defeat this commonsense bill.
The two Democrats and one anti-drilling RINO who run Bucks County government (a Philadelphia suburb) fell for the bait by Big Green and filed a lawsuit against Big Oil companies for supposedly, knowingly, causing the Earth to toast to a cinder (even though 
The State of Texas just dropped a major bombshell last week. The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) pulled $8.5 billion of its investments away from BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment firm, over the state’s determination that BlackRock is engaged in a boycott of energy companies by pressuring companies to avoid the fossil fuel sector by using ESG (environment, social, governance) litmus tests (see 
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 
Ever hear of August “Gus” Schumacher? No, neither had we. He’s a cross-country skier from Alaska. Apparently, he’s mildly famous for being the first American to win a gold medal in an individual race at the Junior World Ski Championships in 2020. He competed in the 30-kilometer skiathlon at the 2022 Winter Olympics. And, he won the Men’s 10-kilometer freestyle race at the 2024 Stifel Loppet Cup in Minneapolis on February 18, 2024. He’s also a brainwashed tool of the left who spouts inanities about global warming and carbon dioxide. Schumacher was completely humiliated, exposed as a fool, by U.S. Senator John Kennedy at a Senate Budget Committee hearing last week (watch the video below).
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is shopping for a public relations firm that can help the agency convince gullible New Yorkers that they’re better off paying more money for unreliable renewable energy than they are in using fossil fuels like natural gas. NYSERDA is offering $500,000 for a one-year contract to help the agency tout its wide-ranging push to phase out gas cars in favor of electric vehicles, dump gas-heated homes in favor of electric heat, and eliminate fossil-fuel power generation in favor of solar and wind. While they’re at it, maybe they can sell you a bridge in Brooklyn, too.
It’s full speed ahead for the radical anti-Marcellus Democrats in the Pennsylvania State Legislature. Last week, PA Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to do a dog-and-pony show announcing his personalized version of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax that would apply only to PA (see 
Where do business dreams go to die? New York State, of course. Yesterday, the New York State Senate passed a bill to ban the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) in any process to extract natural gas or oil in the so-called Empire State. The NY Assembly (our state’s lower chamber) voted to approve the same bill a week ago (see 
The State of Texas just dropped a major bombshell on investment manager BlackRock and the entire so-called ESG (environment, social, governance) space. The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF), created in the 19th century to support the state’s public schools, has pulled $8.5 billion of its investments away from BlackRock over the state’s determination that BlackRock is engaged in a boycott of energy companies by pressuring companies to avoid the fossil fuel sector. The Texas PSF has $53 billion in invested assets. Investing $8.5 billion of it with BlackRock represents 16% of the entire fund.
The Independent System Operator-New England (ISO-NE) is warning “blue states” in the northeast (states controlled by Democrats with an iron fist) that their strategy of pushing 100% renewables and eliminating fossil fuel energy has a fatal flaw. At the federal and state levels, elected Democrats are pushing hard to phase out fossil fuel-fired power infrastructure and replace it with sources of so-called “green” energy like wind and solar. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont — the states that are served by ISO-NE — all have green energy mandates. And they are all in imminent danger of blackouts.
In an embarrassing act of ignorance, seven Virginia state delegates and two state senators (all of them Democrats) who represent the greater Richmond, VA area signed a statement last Wednesday opposing Dominion Energy’s plan to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, a Richmond suburb (see 