3rd Circuit Tosses Riverkeeper Challenge to Transco REA Permits
The Delaware Riverkeeper Network and PennFuture fought for years for the right to challenge Transco’s Regional Energy Access (REA) pipeline permits before Pennsylvania’s Environmental Hearing Board (EHB). They got their wish. Then they lost at the EHB. And yesterday, they lost again in federal court. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously upheld the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) water permits for the Williams-owned pipeline expansion. The court said the groups never showed that the extra water testing they demanded would have changed a thing. Even better, the court handed down a ruling on Pennsylvania’s Environmental Rights Amendment that could make life a lot harder for anti-drillers going forward. Read More “3rd Circuit Tosses Riverkeeper Challenge to Transco REA Permits”
Remember Bucks County, PA’s “sneaky” lawsuit against Big Oil? The one a county judge tossed in May 2025 “with prejudice,” meaning don’t come back? Well, it’s back. Today (Oct. 14), Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court will hear Bucks County’s appeal, which asks the court to bring the dead case back to life. Lined up against the county is an impressive list of “friends of the court,” including Pennsylvania’s own Attorney General Dave Sunday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, the Pennsylvania Chamber, and our friends at both PIOGA and the Marcellus Shale Coalition. All of them are telling the appeals court the same thing: leave it dead. 
Shell Chemical Appalachia wants a federal judge in Pittsburgh to throw out a lawsuit Philadelphia-based Big Green group Clean Air Council filed more than three years ago over air emissions at Shell’s ethane cracker plant in Monaca (Beaver County), PA. Shell’s main argument is simple: the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has already gone after Shell for the very same violations, not once but twice, collecting nearly $25 million in penalties and “community” payments. Federal law, says Shell, doesn’t let a private group pile on when the state is already on the case. Shell also argues the Council never showed that a single member was actually harmed. Shell filed its motion last Friday, Oct. 9, and the Council has agreed to pause the case while the judge decides. 
Here’s a case that slipped under our radar, and it shouldn’t have. On Monday, Nov. 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission, a fight between a group of North Dakota ranchers and an interstate pipeline company. The question sounds dry: when a pipeline company uses eminent domain to take land, does state law or federal law decide how much the landowner gets paid? However, the answer could put money in, or take money out of, the pockets of landowners in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Yesterday, the Court agreed to let the Trump administration take part in the argument, on the side of the pipeline company. 
Finally, a little justice. An international arbitration panel ruled that Venture Global (VG) breached its contract with Portugal’s Galp by delaying the declaration of its Calcasieu Pass LNG export plant in Louisiana as “commercially operational.” That official start date, called COD (commercial operation date), is what triggers deliveries to long-term customers. For more than three years, VG shipped cargo after cargo of LNG from Calcasieu Pass, much of it sold on the sky-high spot market after Russia invaded Ukraine, all while insisting the plant was still in its “commissioning” (startup) phase. Galp, which signed up in 2018 to buy 1 million tonnes per year (MTPA) of LNG for 20 years, waited. Galp now joins BP as the second customer to beat VG in arbitration. The catch? Galp’s payday is capped at $170 million, and the check won’t be written until after a damages hearing in 2027 or 2028. 
Yesterday was the first Monday in October, which means the U.S. Supreme Court opened a new term. The very first case the justices heard may be the most important case for the oil and gas industry, including Marcellus/Utica drillers, in a generation. The case is Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County. It asks whether a city or county can haul energy companies into its own state court and make them pay for the costs of climate change. If the answer is yes, Chief Justice John Roberts predicted a copycat lawsuit from “a municipality in every single state.” That’s not a scare tactic. It’s a business plan for trial lawyers. 
How long does it take a rig hand to pull on coveralls, lace up steel-toed boots, and grab a hard hat? According to Precision Drilling’s own expert, about 2.6 to 4.1 minutes per shift. According to the workers’ lawyers, a lot longer. After 15 years, two trips to the Third Circuit and one to the U.S. Supreme Court, the two sides have split the difference, and it will cost Precision $1.9 million. On Monday (Sept. 22), both sides filed a joint brief in Williamsport federal court asking Judge Matthew Brann to approve the deal. It covers 1,006 hourly rig workers, some of whom worked Precision rigs right here in the Marcellus. The dollars are small. The legal rule the case left behind for Pennsylvania is not. 
A federal judge in Pittsburgh has ruled that two EQT subsidiaries must face most of a lawsuit filed on behalf of four West Virginia kids who claim that emissions from EQT’s shale wells and a nearby compressor station made them sick. On Sept. 23, U.S. District Judge Robert Colville threw out just one of the five claims, a request for a medical monitoring trust fund, and he gave the kids’ lawyers 21 days to fix and refile it. The rest of the case moves forward. That includes a “strict liability” claim that EQT had argued West Virginia law flat-out does not allow against oil and gas operations. It’s a pleading-stage ruling, not a verdict. Even so, it’s a loss for EQT, and it’s one the whole industry should watch. 
DeepRock Disposal Solutions wants two of its Noble County, Ohio, injection wells back in service — and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) keeps saying no. ODNR’s Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management shut the Travis and Warren wells in January 2023, blaming them for a 2021 brine eruption that cost the state $1.28 million to clean up. DeepRock argued its case at a hearing in April. It lost. The division chief issued a fresh order on July 31 continuing the suspension, and on Aug. 28 DeepRock appealed to the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission. Here’s the part our readers should circle on the calendar: under Ohio Administrative Code, DeepRock has 120 days from that July 31 order — until roughly Nov. 28 (our count) — to submit a plan fixing what the division found, or plug both wells permanently.