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Fed EPA Issues Onerous New Rule/Tax on PA/OH/WV Power Plants
Once again, the Biden administration is attacking the fossil fuel industry. This time it is via one of its favorite blunt force instruments: the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Yesterday the EPA released what it calls its final “Good Neighbor Plan” that forces gas- (and coal-) fired power plants to further reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. It’s either reduce NOx by installing really expensive new equipment, shut the plant down, or option #3…pay an indulgence (tax) to keep sinning (polluting) by purchasing an “offset.” Liberals are so predictable.
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This lunatic notion that companies must focus on so-called environmental climate change (the “E” in ESG) is at the core of why Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) went bankrupt. SVB’s collapse threatens to restart another worldwide economic collapse like the one we experienced in 2008. Everyone is still holding their breath that this situation does not spread to dozens of other banks and financial institutions. While SVB had its eye on efforts to “halve” its greenhouse gas emissions, its woke board of directors didn’t have their eye on actually making money. The bank’s managers and board failed to protect the bank and its depositors from rising interest rates (rates brought on by Biden and the Democrats’ wild spending spree). While bank managers were frittering around with greenhouse gas issues and educating employees on which pronouns to use, the bank became insolvent. Bidenomics at its best.
In something of a mystery for us, the radical left continues to try and pound more nails in the coffin of the already-dead New Fortress Energy (NFE) Wyalusing LNG export plant. In March 2022 (one year ago), NFE withdrew a request to build an onshore LNG liquefaction plant in Wyalusing, PA, a plant that would have transported its LNG to NFE’s Repauno Port and Rail Terminal on the shoreline of the Delaware River in Gibbstown, N.J. (see 
The Biden EPA plans to allow private citizens to police oil wells and pipelines for methane leaks. Most of the time that means Big Green groups will do the “policing.” And here’s how it will work: A radicalized group like the Sierra Club or Earthworks or NRDC or some other odious bad actor will set up equipment near oil and gas well sites or pipeline operations to report suspected “super emitter” leaks of at least 100 kilograms per hour. Once reported (likely a false report), the company involved would be required to perform a root-cause analysis within five days and take corrective actions within ten days. Companies will be required to jump through hoops based on an accusation by an anti-fossil fueler. We call it “methane snitches” (see 
The largest investment firm in the world, BlackRock, is attempting to bribe Republicans to leave the company alone (see 
We’ve criticized BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm with $10 trillion under assets, due to CEO Larry Fink’s insistence that public companies adopt ESG (environment, social, governance) policies that include reducing CO2 emissions. Fink’s demands are tantamount to divesting (or refusing to invest in) any company that produces or heavily uses oil and natural gas. A number of Republican-controlled states, including Texas, West Virginia, and Florida, have begun the process of dumping all BlackRock investment funds. Fink is worried–as he should be. He’s losing business. So he’s now doing what sleazy, corrupt leftists always do–resort to bribery.
That was fast. Yesterday we told you that newly-elected Maryland Gov. Wes Moore had nominated someone who actually knows something about the energy industry, from the American Gas Association, to be a member of the Maryland Public Service Commission (see 
With liberal leftist Democrats like NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, popular opinion only matters during an election year, when getting elected (or reelected). After that, Dems like Hochul govern any darned well way they please. It doesn’t matter if a majority of the state’s residents oppose her cockamamie, screwed-up plans to commit energy suicide by banning natural gas across the entire state. She’s moving forward full-speed ahead with her energy suicide plan anyway.
Isn’t it typical for Democrats to try and use a crisis that has nothing whatsoever to do with shale and natural gas to block shale and natural gas? Seven members of Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation, every single one of them a Democrat, sent a letter (copy below) to another Democrat, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (an incompetent nincompoop), asking him to permanently delete a rule adopted during the Trump administration that allows LNG to be safely transported by special rail cars. The reason cited for banning LNG by rail? The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio–an event that has nothing whatsoever to do with shale energy.
Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, journalist, film producer, and public speaker. Over the past three decades, his articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Review, Field & Stream, and Austin Chronicle. Bryce recently published an article on his own Substack website that exposes the $4.5 billion-per-year NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex. You think Big Green groups like the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, and National Resources Defense Council are virtuous defenders of the environment? Think again. They’re in it for the money. Follow the money.
Big Green is Big Business–especially in Pennsylvania, where leftist groups routinely file a blizzard of lawsuits against the shale industry. Some Big Green groups receive funding from foreign sources, including Russia and China. They seem to have endless pools of money to litigate every square inch of new pipeline and every proposed new well pad. As if being repeatedly sued isn’t enough, these disgusting groups want the fossil fuel industry to pay them for their lawyers! When the groups are the ones filing the lawsuits!! The Democrat judges of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in a poorly reasoned decision issued yesterday, have granted Big Green the power to sue, and then get paid for suing.
Since 2015 we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township (Indiana County, PA), a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Big Green group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well proposed by Pennsylvania General Energy (