Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | PennEast Pipeline | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA
THE Delaware Riverkeeper Continues to Sue Dead PennEast Pipe
PennEast Pipeline, a 120-mile, primarily 36-inch pipeline that would have cost $1 billion to build and run from Dallas, Luzerne County, in northeastern Pennsylvania, and terminate at Transco’s pipeline interconnection near Pennington, Mercer County, New Jersey, is as dead as a doornail (see PennEast Pipeline Throws in the Towel – Project Won’t Get Built). In late September the partners in the project announced “PennEast has ceased all further development of the Project.” And yet THE (deluded) Delaware Riverkeeper is convinced PennEast will rise from the dead like Jesus Christ. So Riverkeeper is suing to keep on suing–to keep PennEast dead and buried. We’ll explain.
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In September a cabal of virulent anti-fossil fuel groups, including the Sierra Club, Clean Air Council, PennFuture, Earthworks, and Mountain Watershed Association (all of which hate oil and natural gas), launched their latest attack against the Pennsylvania oil and gas industry. The groups sent a request to the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) lobbying for a dramatic increase in the amount of money drillers must post as a bond when drilling a new well. Unfortunately, the DEP listened and is acting on that request.
It is alarming and shocking how leftist ideology has infected the financial industry worldwide. Banks and asset managers representing 40% ($130 TRILLION) of the world’s financial assets have pledged to meet the goals set out in the Paris climate agreement. More than 450 firms, holding nearly half of the money that gets invested, now belong to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. Their aim? To defund all fossil fuel energy. We’re kind of speechless.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency, the left’s favorite tool to undermine the U.S. Constitution, is attempting to do just that–undermine the Constitution. Today the EPA is floating a massive new regulation that seizes control of oil and gas drilling (and pipelines) away from the individual states, as provided for under the Constitution, and centralizes control in Washington, D.C. under the EPA. How? By forcing a one-size-fits-all regulation on so-called fugitive methane emissions that all states must comply with.
Once again the virulent anti-fossil fuel nuts that compose the federal Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) are targeting the shale industry. Earlier this year the lefties that run the DRBC voted to permanently ban fracking (and therefore all oil and gas drilling) anywhere in the DRBC’s jurisdiction (see 
Earlier this month MDN exclusively broke the news that earlier this year (slipping under the radar) the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) issued permits to Powhatan Salt Company/Mountaineer NGL Storage for three planned solution mining wells in Monroe County (see 
MDN friend, someone we highly respect, is Tom Shepstone, author and compiler over at the 
Our new governor in New York is just as corrupt as the old one. Some things never change. The New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), instead of being an independent, science-based organization, is nothing more than a political tool for whoever sits in the Governor’s Mansion. Current Gov. Kathy Hochul instructed the DEC to reject issuing air permits for two badly-needed natural gas-fired power plants, one in Queens and one in Newburgh. The reason for rejecting the permits? The state’s recently passed “the sky is falling because of man-made global warming” law, misnamed the Climate Community Protection Act (CCPA).
Are labor unions so in-the-tank for *any* Democrat candidate that they can be lied to, to their faces, again and again, year after year, and still vote for the Democrat? Apparently yes. Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, the very corrupt Josh Shapiro, someone who has demonstrated a hatred for the Marcellus Shale industry (he’s prosecuting multiple Marcellus companies for “crimes” that are in fact accidents), is using the same tired playbook politicians always use–an outright lie-to-the-face. This time the lie is about his position on whether or not he supports Tom Wolf’s efforts to force the state to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a tax on carbon dioxide that’s meant to force coal and gas-fired power plants out of business.
We bet you didn’t know a hunk of metal in the ground could be racist. We’re as surprised as you. Imagine that–an inanimate object can actually discriminate against people of color. Who woulda thought? Yes, we’re being sarcastic in an effort to point out the complete lunacy and fallacy of claims that 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 is somehow racist because the pipeline passes through communities that are predominately black or Hispanic. How on God’s green earth is a pipeline delivering fuel to keep people warm in the winter racist? Answer: It’s not.
In August, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP, owned by Equitrans Midstream) filed a subpoena in federal court to find out who recklessly promoted a meeting of a group of anti-pipeline zealots, encouraging them to gather close to (50 feet from) explosives being used to blast through rock to install MVP, putting themselves and workers in harm’s way and causing delays to pipeline construction (see 
A leftist anti-fossil group calling itself Protect PT, in Penn Township (Westmoreland County), PA, backed with big money from Big Green groups, has for years challenged Penn Township ordinances that allow Apex Energy and Huntley & Huntley (now Olympus Energy) to drill and operate shale wells. Protect PT finally struck out legally at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in May 2020 (see 
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 projects (see