NJ Anti-Drilling Zealots Attack Plans for 3 New Gas-Fired Plants
Anti-fossil fuel zealots who irrationally hate all fossil energy, including natural gas, are beside themselves that three new electric power plants are planned for New Jersey. Two would use natural gas as their fuel source, while the third plant plans to use renewables of some kind. Yet antis are freaking out. Two of the planned plants would be for emergency/backup use only and will sit idle 99% of the time. Doesn’t matter: freak out. The remaining plant would produce 630 megawatts of electricity using Marcellus natgas, a relatively small plant (sitting next to an existing plant). Doesn’t matter: freak out. The solution proposed by the naysayers? Just go without electricity. Sit in the dark. Freeze in the winter and boil in the summer.
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On Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court ruled that Gov. Tom Wolf’s obscene carbon tax, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), will not go into effect until “pending further order of the court.” What further action from the court is necessary was not disclosed. What is obvious is that Wolf’s attempt to force the state to join RGGI is now on a very long pause, until more court cases are filed. The end game (for Republicans) is to run out the clock until a new governor is elected in November (hopefully a Republican). Either that, or convince the 5-2 liberal majority of the PA Supreme Court (which is likely where this will end up) to rule against Wolf’s unilateral attempt to force the state into the RGGI compact.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania State Senate failed to override a veto of Gov. Tom Wolf of a resolution that would have stopped PA from entering the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an obscene carbon tax scheme. The override failed by a single vote. Wolf’s patsy, Dept. of Environmental Protection Secretary Pat McDonnell, gushed that he was “pleased” with the failure of the override. What happens now? A lawsuit lingers that can still block RGGI, but if that doesn’t work, PA residents will begin paying MUCH higher rates (a new tax) for their electricity beginning July 1st.
The Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) is highly respected by all of PA state government. IFO’s mission is to review state budgetary policy and render expert, nonpartisan opinion. The IFO, at the request of the Republicans in the state legislature, recently reviewed Gov. Wolf’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) modeling, presenting its findings to a joint hearing of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee and the Community Economic and Recreational Development Committee on Tuesday. The IFO report finds that the money PA will spend on emissions credits at RGGI auctions will result in most PA electric rates quadrupling. You read that right–get ready to pay 4X for electricity if RGGI goes into effect and you live in the Keystone State.
On Wednesday, Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 637, which would block the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) authority to limit carbon dioxide emissions (thereby blocking PA’s entrance into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI) passed by a vote of 126 to 72. Some 10 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote in favor of the bill. HB 637 now goes to the PA Senate for a vote. What then?
Environmental radical Freeda Cathcart, who was once arrested for resisting and interfering with a U.S. Forest Service agent at the site of tree cutting for Mountain Valley Pipeline in Giles County, VA (see 
Cancel culture strikes again. The Evil Empire has won another battle (but not the war). MDN first told you about plans to build the Chickahominy Power Station, a 1,650 megawatt state-of-the-art natural gas-fired power plant in Charles City County, VA, in June 2018 (see 
Consolidated Edison (Con Ed), the local gas and electric utility serving Manhattan Island and Westchester County in the New York City region, has proposed increasing electricity rates by 17.6% and natural gas rates by a stratospheric 28.1% beginning Jan. 1, 2023. Why so high for both? Lack of natural gas in the region. Why is there a lack of natural gas? Lack of pipelines from the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale.
The left always fights dirty. One of their favorite tactics is to demand a change in the rules of the game when they are losing. Free enterprise, allowing the best companies and best solutions to win based on economics, doesn’t work in the world of leftwing radicals. They seek to skew things–change the rules–tie a 50-pound weight on the back of the runner next to them in order to give themselves an advantage in a race. Which is exactly what’s happening in New England, where UNRELIABLE renewables (solar and wind) are complaining to FERC and FERC’s Chairman, Richard “Dick” Glick, a former wind lobbyist, that electricity auctions are awarded to natgas-fired power plants instead of so-called renewables because natgas is 100% reliable and renewables are not. Time to change the rules.
An updated report issued by the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) shows that PA exports far more electricity out of state than any other state in the entire country. In 2021 PA generated 241.6 million megawatt-hours (MWH) of electricity. The state itself used 156.2 million MWH, and exported 85.5 million MWH to other states. The number one source (by far) of fuel used to generate that much electricity? Marcellus natural gas. PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s insane Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax threatens to shut down that gas-fired production.