Sierra Club Attacks Driftwood LNG’s “Dredge & Fill” Permit
You have to hand it to the wackadoodles of the Sierra Club–they sure are creative. They look for any way they can to block American fossil energy. They try to stop drilling for oil and gas via frack bans. They are behind many of the efforts to ban new customers from connecting to natural gas lines in “blue” cities (the ignorant fools fall into the trap almost every time). The Clubbers try to block the transportation of oil and gas by launching lawsuits against pipelines. And now, they are trying to block clean-burning American natural gas (far cleaner than any other gas extracted on the planet) from being exported to help our allies in Europe. The Clubbers and their radical brethren at a group called Healthy Gulf have challenged a “dredge and fill” permit granted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the Driftwood LNG facility now under construction near Lake Charles, Louisiana.
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Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. Last year Olympus filed an application to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” (anti-fossil fuel zealots) got amped up to oppose the rural project (see
Using rational arguments and facts and science to make the case that natural gas and natgas pipelines benefit the environment is akin to spitting in the wind when talking with environmental leftists. But we suppose the effort must be made–at least for appearances. Such is the case in New Jersey, where representatives from several utility companies and an academic think tank patiently, rationally, and carefully lay out the case for how using natural gas and gas pipelines will help NJ achieve its so-called clean energy targets by 2050. The utility reps and think tank use the intellectual equivalent of baby talk so nutty lefties in the Garden State will understand what’s being said. Is it all just spitting in the wind? Probably.
This is getting good. In July, West Virginia dropped the hammer and told five Big Banks (investment firms) the state is about to divest and stop doing business with them (see
Here’s a bit of news only one major news outlet (the Wall Street Journal) has covered: Last week Jennifer Granholm, hands down the most incompetent Secretary of Energy ever to hold the office, sent a letter to seven major refinery companies threatening them that if they don’t scale back exports of gasoline, diesel, and other liquid petroleum products, Granholm will have old dementia Joe whip up an executive order slapping a ban on such exports. She’s making them an offer they can’t refuse.
Just when you thought you’d seen it all from the Communist left in this country (i.e. the Sierra Club and their foreign-backed affiliates), along comes another breathtaking attack. The Clubbers and their minions have filed a petition with the Bidenista-controlled EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), asking the EPA to classify natural gas and fuel oil furnaces throughout the country as a “Source Category” subject to emissions rules under the federal Clean Air Act, which is a clever way of saying the sale of new fossil energy furnaces used in homes and businesses should be banned on the assumption they cause pollution that violates the Clean Air Act.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) plan to flow more Marcellus gas to Westchester County, NY, and New York City, to be used for Consolidated Edison customers, is called the East 300 Upgrade Project. The East 300 project took a giant leap forward in April when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued permits that allow TGP to upgrade two existing compressor stations (in PA), and build a brand new compressor station in West Milford (Passaic County, NJ), just across the border and not far from Westchester County (see
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, in an interview with the Associated Press, attempts to come off as the reasonable, middle-of-the-road, aw-shucks guy who sticks up for what he believes is right and the good of West Virginians. Don’t fall for it. He was pressured by the wackadoodle left in the Democrat Party, and he folded like a cheap suit. Manchin deserves to be voted out of office the instant that opportunity arises. We’re talking, of course, of Manchin’s betrayal of fossil energy through his support for one of the most destructive pieces of legislation that has passed since Joe Biden began to occupy the White House–the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), better known as the Green New Deal (aka Build Back Better). Manchin’s betrayal has profound consequences for fossil energy in this country.
Along with Harvard, Yale University used to be one of the top two higher ed schools in the country. Wow, how the mighty have fallen! Yale is a husk, a shell of what it once was. Yale now puts political ideology above science and generates garbage, calling it “research.” Yale is experiencing some major cognitive dissonance. At various points over the past decade, Yale researchers have claimed fracking does NOT contaminate water aquifers (see
Food & Water Watch (extremist radicals on the far-left spectrum) stirred up a small group of New Jersey residents to come out and protest a proposed electric generating plant to be located at the site of a current power plant in Woodbridge, NJ. Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) already operates one gas-fired power plant at the location. The plant currently powers about 700,000 homes. In 2018, CPV proposed adding a second power plant at the same location (see
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project is 94% complete and in the ground. About the only thing left to build is a short 3.5-mile piece on federal land (Jefferson National Forest) and crossings either through or under several hundred creeks and swamps. We are almost there. And yet anti-fossil fuel zealots believe they can still stop the project and block it from ever finishing. We read yet another fawning ode to environmental zealots article about a small group gathering to commiserate about how they dream of stopping MVP, and it struck us, as it often does, how these people speak of themselves and their efforts in religious terms.
Are Pioneer Natural Resources, Devon Energy, and ConocoPhillips out of their cotton-pickin’ minds?! Those three U.S.-based oil and gas majors have voluntarily given up control of the future of their companies to the United Nations by agreeing to participate in a U.N. program that tracks methane emissions. This is how it works: The U.N. sets the standard and then gets suckers to join it voluntarily. Later, when the standard has been accepted and most companies use it, the U.N. will then bring the hammer down, expanding the standard, making it so restrictive that oil and gas companies can’t follow it. At that point, those who are enrolled in the standard can’t do anything about it. If a company leaves the program, it will be ostracized and no one will buy its oil and gas. The smart thing to do is to tell the U.N., a non-U.S. entity, to get lost.
As of 2035, you won’t be able to buy a gasoline-powered vehicle in Massachusetts. Beginning soon (next year?), some 10 Massachusetts municipalities that have passed a ban on connecting new buildings to natural gas lines will implement those bans, as a test project. Both measures are part of a bill recently signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker, a Democrat who pretends to be a Republican. What’s below a Republican-in-Name-Only (RINO)? Perhaps a Democrat-in-Practice-Without-Actual-Designation (DIPWAD)?
In March 2019, MDN told you about a new Williams plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d (originally 1 billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see