Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Crime | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide OH | Statewide WV | West Virginia
Proposed OH, WV Laws Clamp Down on Illegal Pipeline Protests
Bills aimed at clamping down on illegal pipeline protests (which pretending to be free speech but aren’t) have been introduced in both the Ohio and West Virginia legislatures. In WV, House Bill (HB) 4615 passed the House last week and is now under active consideration in the WV Senate. In Ohio, Senate Bill (SB) 133 was passed last May. The bill was recently reported out of a House committee and likely to see a full House vote soon. It’s obvious that regular folks are tired of radicals and their illegal attempts to block pipeline projects.
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In September 2018, MDN brought you the news that six men had been charged with conspiring to illegally alter emissions systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines, trucks used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
Last December the husband and wife team of Mark and Melinda Clatterbuck got themselves arrested for illegal trespass and disorderly conduct at a Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline site near Philadelphia (see 
The husband and wife team of Mark and Melinda Clatterbuck are at it again–getting themselves arrested for illegal trespass and disorderly conduct at a pipeline site. They previously got themselves arrested in Lancaster County, PA when protesting the Williams Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project (see 
Three weeks ago MDN brought you an excellent column written by one of our favorite writers, Paul Driessen, who said: “Green New Dealers have convinced themselves that our planet faces an imminent, existential, manmade climate cataclysm – that can be prevented solely and simply by government edicts replacing fossil fuels with biofuel, wind, solar and battery energy. They achieve this state of absolute certainty largely by propagating constant scare stories, while ignoring and suppressing contradictory evidence and viewpoints” (see 
Anti-fossil fuel nutters who so often turn to criminal activity in the name of “protecting” the planet have struck again–this time at the Cricket Valley Energy Center in Dutchess County, NY. The natural gas-fired power plant is nearing completion and with every rivet punched and bolt that gets turned, it drives the nutters even more insane than they already are. Some 29 protesters, some of them not local, were arrested by Dutchess County sheriff’s deputies on Saturday for blocking the entrance to the facility. Four of them climbed a 275-foot smokestack to hang banners. We have the names and ages of all 29 who broke the law.
We have an ongoing problem. Some of the more radical protesters in the “environmentalist” movement–those who tend toward anarchy–illegally enter work sites for pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure under construction, and block the work being done in an attempt to cost companies money. Typically they chain themselves to a piece of equipment with a device that takes law enforcement authorities hours to remove. They cause delays and endanger themselves and workers and law enforcement with their illegal actions. It’s time to make the penalties for these dangerous, willful and illegal acts stiffer. Pennsylvania State Senators have introduced a pair of bills to help put a stop to this nonsense.
Last September MDN brought you news that six men had been charged with conspiring to illegally alter emission systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
Last Thursday morning at 6:30 am Blue Racer Midstream’s Natrium (Marshall County, WV) natural gas processing plant received a phoned-in bomb threat. Plant personnel immediately contacted law enforcement (local, state and federal) who swept the plant with bomb-sniffing dogs. Nothing was found.
Do you consider it “free speech” to assemble a mob outside someone’s home at 2 o’clock in the morning and start hollering and shouting, beating a drum, thereby threatening and menacing an innocent family in that home? We sure don’t call it free speech. We call it gang activity–or maybe even terrorism. When the people inside the home feel threatened, what else can you call it? That’s what happened to EQT’s then-CEO Rob McNally and his family in the early morning hours of July 10, the day he lost his job following EQT’s annual meeting. Those outside doing the terrorizing were radical anti-fossil fuel nutters–some from out of state. Crazies. They should have been arrested. They weren’t.
When so-called protesters take the law into their own hands and illegally block a legal activity, like building a pipeline, they should be arrested and the maximum sentence should be enforced. If that doesn’t happen, people begin to disrespect and not trust our legal system. Such a miscarriage of justice happened yesterday in Lancaster County, PA. A group of seven radicalized anti-pipeline activists, including an 88-year-old grandma, were given a pass by a local judge for their illegal actions in blocking pipeline construction back in 2017. One more erosion of our legal system.