PA County Judge Attacks Mariner East 2 Status as Public Utility
Sunoco Logistics Partners, the builder of the Mariner pipeline projects, has fought a long and hard legal battle to be recognized as a public utility in Pennsylvania–especially with regard to the next big project in the lineup, the Mariner East 2 pipeline. ME2, as it’s called, is a $2.5 billion, 350-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through the state of Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia. From the beginning anti-pipeline fanatics have tried to derail the project by claiming it is not a public utility (with the right of eminent domain) as defined by PA’s statutes. In July 2014 two administrative law judges working for the PA Public Utility Commission (PUC) said ME2 is not a public utility (see Setback for Mariner East NGL Pipe – Judges Say Not Public Utility). But a few months later, the Commissioners of the PUC overruled them and said yes, it is a public utility–always has been, always will be (see Major Milestone: PA PUC Rules Mariner East IS a Public Utility). However, the antis continued to challenge it in court. Finally, in July 2016, PA’s Commonwealth Court in hearing an appealed case ruled in favor of Sunoco, saying that ME2 is regulated by both the PUC and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and it therefore has the right to use eminent domain (see Sunoco LP Wins Major Court Decision for Mariner East 2 Pipeline). However, a county judge in Lebanon, PA has just rendered a decision that once again attempts to question ME2’s classification as a public utility. The decision, and how it impacts ME2, is complicated…
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The radicals at the Sierra Club are at it again. Causing private companies to expend big money to defend their Constitutional, capitalistic rights. The NEXUS Pipeline is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. It is a critically needed pipeline to move Utica and Marcellus Shale gas from an over-saturated market in the northeast to markets in the Midwest and Canada. The Sierra Club has just sued DTE Energy, one of the sponsors of the project, falsely claiming DTE’s electric customers will end up paying more for electricity because of the pipeline…
It’s about time! A U.S. District Court Judge in Texas recently granted Exxon the right to examine “internal phone records, other communications and depositions” of far-left Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, related to her involvement in attempting to persecute Exxon Mobil for daring to say man-made global warming may not be all it’s cracked up to be (see 
Yesterday MDN told you that a war of words has broken out between the Obama U.S. Army Corps of Politicized Engineers and Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) over the Dakota Access Pipeline (see 
MDN has highlighted the importance of the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision with regard to the Ohio Dormant Mineral Act (DMA). In September the OH Supreme Court ruled in three DMA cases, saying all of the other cases come under those three (see 
On Oct. 8, after five years in the making, Pennsylvania adopted new shale drilling regulations (see 
In May 2015 the Obama rogue Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with the Obama U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) released a finalized rule clarifying what “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) means vis a vis what can be regulated under the federal Clean Water Act (see 
In May MDN told you about a group of brave landowners in Wayne County, PA who have had their property rights stolen by the Delaware River Basin Commission (see 
MDN has been reporting on the Ohio Dormant Minerals Act (DMA) for years. In a nutshell, there are two DMAs in Ohio–one passed in 1989 that went into effect in 1992, and another in 2006 which added certain additional procedural requirements to the 1989 version. The DMA in its various versions provides for mineral rights that had previously been separated from surface rights to transfer back to the surface owner under certain conditions. The problem, for drillers and for landowners in Ohio, is in knowing which set of DMA rules to use (1989 or 2006) in determining who owns the mineral rights. A number of DMA cases went before the Ohio Supreme Court. In May, Ohio attorney David Wigham (Roetzel & Andress law firm) said there are signs that the Supremes were about to release a massive, all-in-one-go ruling on the DMA (see