Mike Bloomberg Spending $85M to Block Petrochem Plants in M-U, Gulf

Michael Bloomberg, the eleventh richest person in the world (with an ego to match his enormous wealth), has already spent $500 million of his personal fortune to shut down coal plants operating in the U.S. (but not anywhere else, like China). Yesterday, Bloomberg pledged to spend another $500 million to finish the job. He also pledged to “slash gas plant capacity in half, and block all new gas plants.” And just for good measure, Bloomberg is pledging $85 million to block the construction of new petrochemical plants in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Texas, and Louisiana. Nice guy, that Mike Bloomberg. By the way, his company uses fossil energy to power all those Bloomberg terminals that made him so rich.
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The old Energy Harbor coal-fired power plant in Pleasants County, WV, which had been offline since June 1 and was scheduled to be demolished, recently roared back to life under new ownership (see
In April, MDN told you about a radicalized faction within the Pennsylvania Democrat Party trying yet another ploy to block all new Marcellus drilling in the state (see 
This is how lawless dictators behave. The U.S. Senate, charged with approving the people who run various governmental agencies, including the Dept. of Energy, rejected Jeff Marootian, nominated by Joe Biden to be the assistant secretary of the Dept. of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Why? Joe Manchin said Marootian wants to ban natural gas stoves by regulating them out of existence. Biden withdrew Marootian’s nomination–and then “quietly” appointed him as principal deputy assistant secretary of the EERE, where he is now the most senior person and the de facto head of the department. Lawless.
The Bidenistas at the Dept. of Treasury want banks and asset managers to sign on to the lunatic “net-zero” pledge to reduce the mythical increase in global temperatures to no more than 1.5 Celsius by 2050. The way to do it, according to the climate hucksters, is to limit methane and carbon dioxide emissions. In other words, quit burning and using fossil fuels. It’s pure insanity, but this isn’t the first time in world history humans have engaged in mass insanity. Back to center… Yesterday, the Treasury Dept. published?the “Principles for Net-Zero Financing & Investment” report, a document with nine principles (i.e., commandments) that Treasury and the Bidenistas say are voluntary for banks and asset managers to follow. In reality, they are requirements. Banks will disobey at their own peril.
Dominion Energy, a huge utility company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, recently revived a plan to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, a Richmond suburb (see
There’s some major corruption going on in the world of the left, and it got exposed last Wednesday at a Congressional hearing on Capitol Hill. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform held the hearing, chaired by Rep. James Comer (Republican from Kentucky). It was a hearing about a distortion of the justice system called third-party litigation funding (TPLF). It is the practice of a party with no direct stake in a lawsuit funding the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s lawyers as they pursue litigation. Example: billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Big Green groups (funded in part by foreign countries like China and Russia) paying for lawyers for smaller green groups and mom-and-pop plaintiffs to repeatedly sue the oil and gas industry to block drilling and pipelines, or to force a change in regulations. There are, believe it or not, investment funds set up to invest in lawsuits! And the investors (the people with the money) can control whether or not the plaintiffs they are backing can or cannot settle the lawsuit. It is no longer about justice but about money. It is a GROTESQUE bastardization of the entire justice system. And it MUST STOP.
In April 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to review Section 401 of the Clean Water Act–the section that grants states (and tribes) the right to have a say in pipeline and other infrastructure projects (see
The nutters are out in full force, particularly in Pennsylvania, using fraudulent “studies” by the Ohio River Valley Insititute (ORVI) and (sadly) the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) to call for an end to the Marcellus industry in the great Keystone State. A recent “letter to the editor” appearing in the Sunbury (PA) Daily Item is a perfect example. On Sept. 3, the Daily Item ran an op-ed titled “Is fracking good for Pennsylvania,” concluding that it is not. It was written by a member of the Climate Reality Project, a far-left organization that irrationally hates fossil energy. The typical references were made to the fraudulent ORVI and Pitt studies. Ten days later, another op-ed appeared in the Daily Item, written by David Callahan from the Marcellus Shale Coalition, setting the record straight.
In August 2022, Columbia Gas Transmission (a subsidiary of TC Energy) filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the Virginia Reliability Project (VRP), which includes two new compressor units and the replacement of existing pipeline (see
Actions have consequences. Environuts, like the lefties in Maine, seem to forget that. In early 2021, Summit Natural Gas of Maine, a regional utility company, announced plans to extend its service territory into Maine’s Midcoast region with a $90 million pipeline project (see
Another great American university has fallen to the forces of radical left Communism–New York University (NYU). Rich kids with no purpose in life other than to navel gaze and worry about the latest Taylor Swift video have found a new purpose: try to get the old farts in the board rooms at their school to divest from fossil fuel stocks. Not because it actually makes sense or would improve anything–but just to see if they can do it. Fortunately, 99% of colleges and universities have decided against divestment. Back in 2016, NYU and Cambridge University told the brainwashed kids to buzz off (see
Aggressive “protesters” and the nonprofits that organize and send them out are finally getting some of their own medicine. Big Green funds frivolous lawsuits, and when those lawsuits are finally exhausted (and have failed), Big Green pays protesters to engage in illegal stunts aimed at shutting down the construction of projects like the 94% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Protesters are aggressively attempting to delay the final 6% of MVP construction, even though the completion of MVP is guaranteed by an Act of Congress (see
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, like a recently updated report claiming the shale industry didn’t create any jobs or economic benefit in the Marcellus/Utica (see