Biden Admin Blocks O&G Projects Internationally
The hypocrisy of Joe Biden and his administration continues. Biden has repeatedly begged Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ to increase oil production, while at the same time shutting down pipeline projects and disallowing new leases and drilling on public lands here at home. He then blames our domestic producers for not ramping up production! Here’s the latest: The Biden administration has *ordered* U.S. government agencies to *immediately* stop financing new “carbon-tensive fossil fuel projects” overseas and instead begin to push unreliable so-called renewable technology, like Chinese-manufactured solar and wind technology.
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An issue we’ve written about over the years is the problem of some (certainly not all) so-called climate activists (those who believe in man-made global warming) tipping over from being boisterous and loud and making silly asses of themselves into something more: becoming violent. Thankfully such violent/terroristic episodes have been few and far between. But something is changing. Some leaders of the modern environmental left are beginning to advocate for violence–like blowing up pipelines. They justify their calls for terrorism as somehow heroic or necessary to save the planet.
Even though U.S. LNG exports help the U.S. by providing more jobs and economic prosperity, and even though U.S. LNG exports help the world by providing a green alternative to coal and other forms of environmentally destructive fuels, some Democrats continue to bash away at natural gas and are actively trying to kill the industry in our country. Legislation introduced Dec. 7 by Representative Jan Schakowsky (Democrat-Illinois), and Nanette Diaz Barragán (Democrat-California), would bar the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from approving new LNG terminals.
The odious leftists from the so-called Food & Water Watch (Big Green group, funded with foreign money) continue to pressure, cajole, woo, and hoodwink local municipalities in New Jersey to oppose building a new dock on the Delaware River–a dock that would allow LNG cargo carriers to come alongside and load up with yummy, safe, clean-burning LNG. The latest victim of FWW’s lies is Trenton, New Jersey.
Once again Democrat politics rear their ugly head to pressure the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board, which voted last Friday to reject issuing an air permit for a compressor station in southern Virginia for the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate extension that will run 75 miles from Virginia into North Carolina. The permit would have allowed a compressor station to be built in the Virginia town of Chatham (Pittsylvania County). And according to critics of the pipeline, that’s just plain racist.
Last Thursday CNX Resources reached a plea deal with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office over alleged violations of the Air Pollution Control Act and bad recordkeeping. Yeah, you read that right. State Attorney General Josh Shapiro (a real putz) leveled criminal charges against CNX over miscounting how many times the company used a pig (pipeline inspection gauge) to clean out a pipeline in Washington County, PA. An anti-fossil fuel zealot who lives near the pigging station complained about noise and emissions and ran squealing to the AG (pun intended).
A group of anti-fossil fuel zealots, with support from a clueless reporter at the Boston Globe, are targeting a tiny “peaker” gas-fired electric power generating plant in Peabody, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston). The small 55-megawatt peaker would provide electricity only on the heaviest demand days for short periods of time. It would be powered by clean-burning natural gas. Yet the crazies are out in force protesting this $85 million project. Why? Because it will contribute, so say the crazies, to global warming. What dunces.
Today, right now, the #1 source of electricity produced in the so-called Empire State is…(drum roll please)…natural gas. By 2040 the state says natural gas will produce zero electricity and the number one source to produce electricity will be huge, ugly, noisy, environmentally-damaging windmills–both onshore and offshore. We plan to be around in 20 years just to laugh and say “we told you so” that such a plan is a pure (and dangerous) fantasy. Yesterday the state’s power management grid, called NYISO (New York Independent System Operator, Inc.) held an Installed Capacity and Market Issues Working Group meeting. From a question asked about the state recently denying permits to upgrade natgas-fired power plants, it was obvious NYISO members don’t have a clue how they will generate enough electricity to keep the lights on in 20 years’ time.
After signing the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said: “We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Someone at Consolidated Edison (ConEd) never studied history. ConEd has joined hands with the very people that seek to destroy the fossil fuel industry in a campaign to pressure New York City into adopting a new law prohibiting new customers from hooking up for natural gas delivery. Even though ConEd itself is one of two primary suppliers of natural gas in NYC. Why do such a foolish thing?
Leftist tyrants are no longer content to block new shale and pipeline projects. They’ve been largely successful doing that. They have now moved on to attacking existing shale and pipeline projects, hoping to shut them down. Completely evil people. Case in point: The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) targeted the Spire STL pipeline, a 65-mile pipeline that connects to and flows Marcellus/Utica gas from the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline to more than 640,000 residents and businesses in the St. Louis, Missouri area. If the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) does not extend an emergency certificate for the project, it will close down on Dec. 13–in two weeks’ time. How does this new development of the left weaponizing our courts against us affect other existing pipelines? Will the darkness grow and threaten other assets?
Leftists are not only anti-fossil fuels and anti-freedom, they’re also (when they eventually don’t convince others with their inane arguments) violent. Case in point: David Suzuki, the so-called godfather of the Canadian environmental movement, warned over the weekend that if politicians don’t act to reverse climate change, there could be attacks against oil and gas infrastructure. He flat-out threatened to blow up pipelines. Why is this man not in jail?
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is (surprisingly, under the current regime) sticking up for its decision made during the Trump administration to allow Equitrans’ 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from West Virginia into Virginia to continue working on completion of the 92% done project. A coalition of Big Green groups has repeatedly, viciously challenged and tried to block completion of the pipeline, more than doubling costs for the project due to court delays. On Friday, FERC filed a defense of its orders from late last year to allow MVP to restart construction on all but a very few locations still being litigated (primarily a small section through Jefferson National Forest).
The environmental radicals on the left continue their push to defeat the construction of an $800 million liquefaction plant in Wyalusing (Bradford County), PA, meant to liquefy and ship LNG to a planned facility on the Delaware River, for exporting to other countries. The left’s latest ploy? Antis are proclaiming a special permit issued during the Trump administration that allows LNG from the Wyalusing plant to be shipped via special rail cars is about to expire at the end of this month and almost certainly won’t get renewed. In addition, antis have stirred up some of the liberal locals near the port facility where the LNG would get safely loaded onto ships. It is a continuing, coordinated two-pronged attack against the project.
Yes, we as a collective society have lost our collective heads. So-called Critical Race Theory (CRT) appears to have brainwashed large swaths of our great land into seeing racism in every interaction and under every rock, tree–and now, even under the ground. Pipelines are racist! That’s the cry of the hard left, which unfortunately now controls our federal government. Three weeks ago we told you the Biden EPA had launched a film flam “investigation” (i.e. witch hunt) into a small pipeline aimed at delivering natural gas to a facility in Brooklyn so the gas can be liquefied and carted around New York City to prevent gas outages (see