Same Two Enviro Groups Sue Shell Cracker for 2nd Time in 17 Months
In May 2023, two radicalized Big Green groups—the Environmental Integrity Project (based in D.C.) and the Clean Air Council (based in Philadelphia)—filed a lawsuit against the Shell Polymers Monaca Plant (ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA), claiming the plant has repeatedly violated federal air pollution limits (see Radical Antis File Lawsuit Aiming to Shut Down Shell PA Cracker). The lawsuit requested the court assess huge fines and force it to close down unless it can operate without any further violations of the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) and the federal Air Pollution Control Act (APCA). The same two groups are back 17 months later, telling Shell via a “notice of intent to sue” that they will soon file the same type of lawsuit again. Read More “Same Two Enviro Groups Sue Shell Cracker for 2nd Time in 17 Months”
What is happening in American politics is shocking. Unfortunately, we are so shocked almost daily that we’re (as a society) becoming numb to it. Never in the history of our country have the members of one political party sought to jail their political opponents. It’s happening now, and the party/movement in question comes from the left. Democrat elected officials in New York City and progressive advocacy groups are pushing New York City’s prosecutors to charge fossil fuel companies AND their executives with crimes for “reckless endangerment” for their supposed role in causing “climate change.” Never mind that the left can’t prove mankind is catastrophically causing global warming (which is what they mean by climate change). They seek to jail people who disagree with them. It’s astonishing. 
Under the Clean Air Act, legal challenges to “nationally applicable” EPA rules must be tried in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit). Unfortunately, that court is loaded with Constitution-ignoring liberals. The U.S. Supreme Court has just agreed to hear arguments in a set of cases that seek to move legal battles over certain EPA rules that aren’t “nationally applicable” from the D.C. Circuit to other appeals courts around the country. Is this the beginning of real justice, at least for some issues related to the out-of-control EPA? 
In August, some two dozen states asked the U.S. Supreme Court to place a temporary block on new EPA regulations that will put all coal plants out of business and block most (if not all) new gas-fired power plants from getting built (see 
The northeast, particularly New England, has some of the highest energy costs in the country. We are the poster child for inadequate fuel supplies and lack of energy. Yet we have embarrassing riches of energy under our feet in the Marcellus/Utica! The problem? “The Northeast is the most extreme example of demand/supply mismatch in recent years, thanks to local court decisions and policy changes that have brought gas infrastructure developments to a screeching halt. Challenges facing the region will only persist, if not get worse until adequate infrastructure is built to bring energy into the region.” 
In May 2023, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced that it would convert the Kingston Fossil Plant (coal-fired plant) in East Tennessee to a natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 1,500 megawatts of electricity (see 
In early September, MDN told you that UGI Corporation, one of PA’s largest utility companies, plans to store trailers of LNG in the parking lot of a storage facility near Scranton, PA, and is seeking a zoning variance to do so (see 
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (6th Circuit) slammed the brakes on a pipeline project in Tennessee on Friday. In January, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a certificate of public convenience for Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) subsidiary to build the Cumberland Project, a 32-mile, 30-inch pipeline to feed 245 MMcf/d of natural gas (from the Marcellus/Utica) to the Tennessee Valey Authority’s (TVA) proposed Cumberland gas-fired power plant. 
The stakes in this November’s election are incredibly high—for the country as a whole and for shale energy everywhere, including here in the Marcellus/Utica. Pennsylvania has been the focus this election season due to the presidential race. However, there is another M-U state, Ohio, where the outcome of a statewide race is also very important: that of the Ohio Supreme Court. There are seven judges on Ohio’s high court, with Republicans holding a slim 4-3 majority. There are three seats up for election. It is anticipated that the Ohio Supreme Court will handle an appeal by anti-fossil fuel zealots of the state’s law that allows drilling under (not on) state land and state parks. If the high court tips to the radical left, drilling under state land is in jeopardy. 
California law firm Sher Edling received more than $3 million in unreported dark money to push high-profile climate litigation on behalf of dozens of Democratic-led cities and states, according to a congressional report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Sher Edling, the Senate Commerce Committee and House Oversight Committee report found, received $2.9 million last year from the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, a shadowy group managed by the New Venture Fund. Because the contributions were made in 2023, the New Venture Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based dark money organization, isn’t required to disclose its contributions until it files its next annual 990 form with the IRS in mid-November. 
Yesterday, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a “slip opinion” dismissing a challenge to a tiny 3.7-mile, 30-inch pipeline Columbia Gas wants to build in Maumee, a city in Lucas County, Ohio, a suburb about 10 miles southwest of Toledo. The owners of a commercial office building claimed they would suffer “irreparable financial harm” if the pipeline were built near their office building. The pipeline does not cross any land owned by the company but does cross land adjacent to the building. We searched our considerable archives (over 28,000 posts!) and found no references to this project. 
The province of Québec, Canada, with a huge supply of Utica Shale gas sitting beneath it, passed a new law in 2022 outlawing all oil and natural gas production throughout the province (see 
Today, we bring you news about a lawsuit filed just over three years ago, in September 2021, by four landowners in southwestern Pennsylvania who leased their land to Range Resources for drilling. The lawsuit is just now coming on our radar screen. Range did drill and, claims the landowners, deducted expenses from royalty checks for both methane and NGL production that were not allowed. The case is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of PA and continues to advance. On September 30, a judge certified the case as a class action with the potential to affect 204 landowners with leases containing specific language. 
The Bidenistas at the EPA attacked coal and gas-fired power plants in April, threatening to destabilize the existing electric power grid with new regulations (see 
In January, MDN told you about a long-closed landfill that seeks to reopen in Liberty and Pine Townships in Mercer County, PA (see