Fed Judge Dismisses Dela. Riverkeeper Lawsuit Against FERC
It took a whole year, but a federal court has just thrown out a frivolous lawsuit filed by Maya van Rossum, THE Delaware Riverkeeper, which attempted to defund the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Last year MDN reported on the lawsuit filed by Maya and company–a lawsuit which aimed to shut down the entire agency by defunding it (see THE Delaware Riverkeeper Sues FERC, Tries to Close it Down). Delaware Riverkeeper filed their lawsuit against FERC in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia–one of the most liberal jurisdictions in the country. The lawsuit claimed FERC can’t objectively make decisions about projects like the Penn East Pipeline (running from the Wilkes-Barre area to New Jersey) because FERC derives some of its operating revenue from the projects it either approves or does not approve. Liberal U.S. District Justice Tanya Chutkan found Riverkeeper’s arguments don’t hold water (pun intended). In her 20-page opinion (copy below), Chutkan doesn’t buy Maya’s BS line that FERC is hopelessly biased. Although Maya tried to spin the bad news as good (because Riverkeeper achieved “standing” in the case), the decision is, in fact, a crushing blow for Maya and her merry band of eco-nuts…
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MDN has previously highlighted the importance of last year’s Ohio Supreme Court decision with regard to the Ohio Dormant Mineral Act (DMA). In September 2016 the OH Supreme Court ruled in three DMA cases, saying all of the other cases come under those three (see 
A disappointing setback for the much-needed Constitution Pipeline–a $683 million, 124-mile pipeline due to run from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY carrying Marcellus gas. As you may recall, in April 2016, New York’s anti-drilling governor, Andrew Cuomo, decided he would cave to pressure from radical environmentalists and block the building of the federally-approved Constitution Pipeline (see 
What if a landowner leased his or her land decades ago and a driller drilled a conventional natural gas well on the property, and that well has produced commercial volumes of natural gas for years–and still does. And what if the lease gives that driller the right to drill (or not drill) in any given rock lawyer. And what if that driller is content to simply let that conventional well keep producing and not drill further down, into the now commercially viable Utica (or Marcellus) shale layer? Does the landowner, whose land is located where the Utica/Marcellus exists, have any case for taking back the rights to the deeper shale layers the conventional driller refuses to go after? That’s a case that has now worked its way all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court. The question turns on whether or not “reasonable development” in a lease includes unexplored, deep formations…
New York’s corrupt Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, is getting desperate. We want to go on record as one of the first to say he’s sowing the seeds of his own destruction. Schneiderman is a train wreck waiting (and about) to happen. We refer, of course, to Schneiderman’s eerie similarity to Captain Ahab in Moby Dick in attempting to hunt down ExxonMobil, Schneiderman’s great white whale. Recently Schneiderman, in cooperation with a sycophantic mainstream media, released information that former CEO Rex Tillerson (now Secretary of State) had a second email account. But unlike Hillary Clinton, Tillerson’s second account was not on a private server and was not used (as Schneiderman alleges) to secretly discuss how Tillerson “knew” burning oil and other fossil fuels causes mythical man-made global warming. Schneiderman’s action in running to the press to “reveal” a “secret” email account is a faint–a way to misdirect people from the real story, which is that Schneiderman continues to refuse to disclose his own emails that prove this whole Exxon witch hunt began when Schneiderman colluded and closely coordinated with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Family Fund, and billionaire green activist Tom Steyer. A log of emails shows coordination just prior to the launch of the #ExxonKnew campaign for which Schneiderman is the point man. He’s desperate to avoid releasing his own emails–emails that will implicate him…
A group of approximately 250 Ohio landowners, represented by an Ohio eminent domain law firm, is doing its best to stop Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline project dead in its tracks. Rover is playing beat the clock to finish tree clearing following a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) final approval of the project on Feb. 3 (see 
President Trump has issued a number of Executive Orders to overturn some of the egregious over-regulation that popped up during the reign of terror known as the Obama Administration. Some of the orders encourage new pipeline development (Keystone XL and Dakota Access). Some “require” American-made pipelines to be used when building new pipeline projects. Some roll back truly onerous regulations like Waters of the United States (WOTUS)–which puts all bodies of water down to the size of mud puddles under EPA authority. Trump has been going great guns. But, those orders may not be a slam dunk, given our court system populated with Obamadroids. Here’s four things to consider, to be aware of, when it comes to Trump’s Executive Orders and directives aimed at the energy industry…
Sometimes this regulatory stuff gives us a headache. Like today. A common practice by anti-fossil fuel nutters when opposing a pipeline project at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is to request a “re-hearing” on a decision FERC has made to authorize a project. It’s just standard operating procedure. If the antis can get FERC to agree to a re-hearing, it effectively slows, even stops, an active pipeline project. So in an effort to prevent important projects from being slowed or stopped, FERC developed something called a “tolling order”–which grants FERC more time to consider whether or not a full re-hearing is justified. During the time of the tolling order (which can last up to six months), work on a pipeline continues. Sometimes the work even gets completed! Which of course drives the antis bonkers. Antis claim FERC uses tolling orders to avoid lawsuits. You see, antis can’t take their frivolous cases to a court until FERC has officially denied a re-hearing request. So by using a tolling order, FERC can drag out the process of deciding to deny a re-hearing, avoiding the inevitable frivolous lawsuit that comes with it, and work on important projects gets done. This is how things must operate in our litigious society that tolerates the antics of anti-fossil fuelers (with seemingly bottomless pockets of money to litigate every project). New wrinkle: When FERC Commissioner Norman “cry baby” Bay resigned in a huff effective Feb. 3, it left FERC without enough Commissioners (without a quorum) to vote on tolling orders, re-hearing requests, etc. So on Feb. 3, before Bay left, the existing three Commissioners delegated their authority over re-hearings and tolling orders to FERC staffers–until a new Commissioner is appointed and sworn in. Antis against Atlantic Sunrise are using the delegated tolling order issue against FERC in their attempt to stop commencement of construction on Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project, claiming they are being deprived of their “due process”…
There are a few last, desperate gasps at attempting to stop Sunoco Logistics Partners’ Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline from being built. The pipeline is currently under construction (see 
Not long after the Pennsylvania legislature passed the Act 13 Marcellus Shale drilling law in 2012, signed into law by then-Gov. Tom Corbett, seven selfish towns sued, claiming they should have the right (via zoning laws) to determine just where an oil and gas well can be located within their borders. The challenge was brought by rabid anti-drillers and appealed all the way to the PA Supreme Court, where unfortunately the antis won (see 
When was the last time you heard of someone indicted on criminal charges and instead of doing time in jail, they just paid money? While some crimes involve fines, they always involve jail, or probation, or some form confinement/punishment other than just paying money. At least that’s what we always thought. But if you’re part of the Gestapo, otherwise known as the Environmental Crimes Unit of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, apparently the rules don’t apply. People in the AG’s office can accuse you of a crime, then shake you down for money, and give that money away to anyone they want. That’s what just happened with Anadarko. As we recently reported (see 
We know this is an important story, and we know that some (many?) MDN readers will be interested. But this is one of those rare cases where we just can’t get our heads around the scope and importance of the story–and who it really affects. We had thought that landmen in Ohio (agents who deal with landowners and mineral rights owners, getting them to sign leases or easements) did not have to be licensed real estate agents in order to do their job. However, a court case just decided in Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals seems to say that at least some landmen DO need to be licensed real estate agents, in order to get paid a commission on deals they’ve brokered. We don’t think the decision requiring a real estate license applies to all landmen in Ohio (although we’re open to correction on that point). Below we have information about the Dundics v. Eric Petroleum Corp. case, along with previous info from 2014 that indicates the reverse–that Ohio landmen DO NOT need to be licensed real estate brokers. Does the Dundics case supersede previous rulings? Is the Dundics case dealing with an obscure situation that doesn’t apply to all landmen? We simply don’t know…
Statoil, based in Norway, is a big player in the West Virginia Marcellus Shale. Statoil paid property taxes to Brooke, Marshall, Ohio and Wetzel counties (all in WV) in 2015 and later found, during an audit/review, that they had overpaid those counties. They overpaid Brooke by $1.8 million, Ohio by $2.9 million, Wetzel by $1.6 million and Marshall by $342,000 (see 
Here’s an interesting story. A religious commune of Hare Krishnas in Marshall County, WV steadfastly refused to sign an easement with Rover Pipeline to allow the pipeline across ~3,000 feet of commune-owned property. Rover had offered the Krishnas $7,000 for the easement, but no dice. You may recall that the Krishnas have no problem accepting oil and gas money, and have done so by leasing their land for shale drilling–even though the official view of the Krishnas is that “gas drilling is exploitative, that it is unsustainable and ‘contributes to the culture of death and toxicity’” (see