PA Antis Accuse DEP of Ignoring Illegal Shale Waste Dumping
Earlier this week, MDN told you that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced a consent order assessing a $600,000 fine against a trucking company that hauled drill cuttings from West Virginia to PA and dumped them (without a permit) at several sites owned by the trucking company (see PA DEP Fines Trucking Co. $600K for Dumping Drill Cuttings No Permit). Radical anti-fossil energy proponents are demanding more information from the DEP about the consent order and other details under the Right-to-Know law.
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Two weeks ago, the Bidenistas announced their latest “we hate fossil fuels” initiative–forcing all new or newly renovated federal buildings to use electricity for heat beginning in 2025. Here’s one of the dumbest statements ever uttered by a sitting Secretary of Energy: “Ridding pollution from our buildings and adopting clean electricity are some of the most cost-effective and future-oriented solutions we have to combat climate change.” Yeah, Jennifer Granholm called heating with natural gas and fuel oil “pollution.” That’s how nutty and wacky the left has become. The Bidenistas say this move to all-electric will save taxpayers millions of dollars. It will do the complete opposite.
A new paper from Net Zero Watch (copy below) illustrates how climate alarmists are waging psychological warfare on the public. The alarmists are being funded by American billionaires and aided by psychologists who are advising alarmist groups that fear tactics are a useful tool to use on people. Psychologists using fear to manipulate the public is a gross breach of ethics–they should be decertified and prosecuted.
What can we say? Once again, the Democrat Party is trying to demonize fossil fuels and is going after “Big Oil,” proposing insanely high new taxes on a handful of oil companies because, for a single year (2022), they have actually made some money. All money and profits belong to the government in the left’s twisted worldview. A cabal of seven Senators led by Sen. Robert Menendez from New Jersey has launched this latest attack against our industry.
Well, that didn’t take long! Yesterday MDN told you that the Attorney Generals from 13 states had recently filed a protest with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking to block Vanguard, a MAJOR investor (with $7.2 trillion of assets under management), from buying stocks in electric utility companies. Why? Because Vanguard is (among other things) a member of the radicalized Net Zero Asset Managers group–a group whose mission is to force companies to abandon the use of fossil energy. And just like that, Vanguard quit its membership in the Net Zero nutters group. It seems Vanguard values profits over pretentious virtue signaling, after all.
Is Vanguard the next BlackRock–i.e, a pariah due to its extreme anti-fossil energy positions? YES. The Attorneys General from 13 states, including Ohio and West Virginia, have filed a protest with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking to block Vanguard, a MAJOR investor (with $7.2 trillion of assets under management, second largest after BlackRock with $10 trillion) from buying stocks in electric utility companies. Why? Because Vanguard, like BlackRock, is trying to force the companies it invests in to abandon the use of fossil energy. If you own Vanguard investments–it’s time to dump them. Let’s hit them where it counts–in the pocketbook.
We spotted an article about the left’s war on fossil energy, and how that war is causing economic chaos around the world. We disagree 100% with the premise of the article, which begins this way: “Climate change is a real and urgent problem. More than a century of carbon emissions is warming the planet and causing floods, droughts, fires and other cataclysmic events that are killing people, threatening livelihoods and upending economies.” However, the author goes on to say that the war on fossil fuels (which are, according to the author, the source of carbon emissions) is causing its own form of chaos. He makes some great points about the chaos that comes from not having a good transition plan in place to get us from fossil energy to so-called renewables.
A group of 40 so-called environmental groups (all of them leftist radicals) is doing its best to defeat the 94% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. The groups sent a letter yesterday to officials at the U.S. Dept. of Interior, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), asking those agencies to stretch out the process of granting new permits (for the THIRD time) to complete MVP by as long as possible. The radicals want a 30-day public scoping period, for starters, so they can repeat their lies once again. They’ve already had their say multiple times for many months–they don’t need another 30-day slot now.
Yet another area heavily infested with far-left Democrats has voted to abolish the freedom of residents to choose their own energy source. The Montgomery County (Maryland) County Council voted 9-0 (all nine are Dems) to ban new natural gas hookups beginning in 2026. Montgomery County is a suburb of the D.C. swamp (lots of swamp dwellers in Montgomery). The County Executive, also a Dem, said he supports the ban and will sign it into law. This is what happens under one-party rule when that party doesn’t give a damn about the poor people and people of color who will end up being most affected by such a ban.
Most New Yorkers are clueless about a law passed in 2019 called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (or “Climate Act”), which limits carbon dioxide emissions to zero (an impossibility) by 2050 (see 
In April, the New York State Assembly passed Assembly Bill A7389C. In June, the New York State Senate passed the same bill, sending it to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk for a signature (see 
European political leaders have been hell bent for leather to kill off fossil fuel energy used in their respective countries. And they have pretty much done it. They’ve been successful–at least with reducing the production of fossil energy. Europe has restricted new investment in fossil energy and is now paying the price. According to François-Régis Mouton, regional director for Europe at the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers, Europe has “killed fossil energy.” European manufacturers that depend on fossil energy–either for heat and electricity or as an input into their processes (like fertilizer plants using natural gas), are shutting down. Some are relocating to the U.S.