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Effort to Block Grove City Landfill Appealed to Commonwealth Court

In January, MDN told you about a long-closed landfill that seeks to reopen in Liberty and Pine Townships, in Mercer County, PA (see Group Claims Drill Cuttings for Grove City Landfill “Radioactive”). In 2020, Tri-County Landfill Inc. submitted a permit application for the construction and operation of a municipal waste landfill that had operated from 1950-1990. One of the objections to reopening the landfill is that it may accept drilling cuttings from fracked wells.
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Lawsuit Against WV’s 2022 Forced Pooling Law Still Alive, for Now

Hopefully, we’re near the end of an effort to overturn a bill passed in early 2022 by the West Virginia legislature, Senate Bill (SB) 694, which finally brought forced pooling for shale wells to the Mountain State after eight years of trying (see WV House Passes Forced Pooling Bill, Done Deal When Gov Signs). A lawsuit brought by two West Virginia landowners seeking to overturn the state’s forced pooling (i.e., unitization) law was put on pause by a federal judge in December 2022 (see WV Landowner Lawsuit to Block Forced Pooling Law Dealt Another Blow). The federal judge said the lawsuit belongs in state court and that he did not have jurisdiction over the case. West Virginia officials disagreed and appealed the ruling to the next rung up the federal court ladder (see WV Appeals Lawsuit re Forced Pooling Law to Higher Fed Court). It took a while, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled two days ago that the federal district court judge didn’t do his job right (he DOES have jurisdiction) and bounced the matter back to him for resolution.
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2nd Plum Injection Well Approval Suffers Minor Court Setback

Score a (very) minor victory for the radicals of a Little Green Group (funded with money from Big Green groups) called Protect PT. Last October, a lawsuit brought by Protect PT against a second injection well planned for Plum Borough (Allegheny County), PA, had oral arguments before the state’s Commonwealth Court (see PA Court Hears Arguments Against 2nd Plum Injection Well Permit). The lawsuit challenged an approval by Plum’s Zoning Board. Yesterday, the judges of the mostly conservative Commonwealth Court ruled in favor of the radicals to send the approval back to the Zoning Board for another look and more justification.
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Antis Use Biden’s LNG Pause to Challenge Already-Approved Projects

Last Friday, Joementia announced he is putting “a temporary pause on pending decisions of Liquefied Natural Gas exports.” The reason? The so-called “climate crisis” is “the existential threat of our time.” It’s all rubbish. The real reason is that he bowed to radical leftists in his own party. He needs them if he has a prayer of a chance of winning reelection in November (God forbid). The action supposedly affects 17 projects in the pipeline that have requested approval from the Dept. of Energy to export LNG to countries without free-trade agreements. But now, antis say Biden’s pause can potentially help them with their existing lawsuits against facilities already approved by the DOE.
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Canadian Court Blocks Part of Quebec’s Ban on O&G Drilling

The province of Quebec, Canada, with a huge supply of Utica Shale gas sitting beneath it, passed a new law in April 2022 — Bill 21 — outlawing all oil and natural gas production throughout the province (see Quebec Pulls Trigger & Commits Energy Suicide – Bans All O&G Prod.). It was a breathtaking grab of totalitarian power. It’s also energy suicide. Quebec said it would pay a piddly US$79.5 million to expropriate the oil and gas drilling rights of companies owning those rights in the province. A number of companies sued…
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Antis Have No Right to Appeal Decision to Drill Under State Parks

Anti-fossil fuel fanatics in Ohio (and beyond) still can’t accept that they lost a battle to block drilling under (not on) Ohio state-owned land, including some Ohio state parks. In November, the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) met in a public forum and voted to allow shale drilling under three state-owned tracts of land: (1) all 20,000 acres of Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County, (2) more than 300 acres of Valley Run Wildlife Area in Carroll County, and (3) 66 acres of the Zepernick Wildlife Area in Columbiana County (see OGLMC Votes to Allow Fracking Under Ohio’s Salt Fork State Park). The vote precipitated a panic attack among the environment left. Earthjustice and the Ohio Environmental Council (disgusting leftwing green groups) filed a lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court appealing the OGLMC’s action (see Big Green Sues to Block Drilling Under (Not On) Ohio State Parks). One teeny, tiny problem for the wackos: The new law that empowers the OGLMC to do the leasing does not contain a provision to appeal their decisions to a court.
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OH Supremes Revive Lawsuit Against ODNR for Closing Injection Well

Here’s a story we haven’t written about in over three years. American Water Management Services (AWMS) owns a wastewater injection well in Trumbull County that supposedly caused a low-level earthquake (that nobody could feel) in 2014. Actually, there are two injection wells located at the site, both operated by AWMS. They were both “temporarily” shut down by the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources following the quake nobody could feel (see ODNR Temporarily Shuts Down Injection Wells After Low-Level Quake). ODNR allowed AWMS to reopen one of the injection wells but denied it the right to reopen the second well. AWMS appealed the closure of the second well all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court in 2018.
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DC Circuit Dismisses Case Against TGP Brought by Antero & EQT

Shippers, including drillers, utility companies, and others that buy and sell natural gas, are now free to buy and sell producer-certified gas (PCG) or responsibly sourced gas (RSG) at all pooling points across the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) system following a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit). The judges of the DC Circuit dismissed a case brought by Antero Resources and EQT Corporation attempting to block TGP’s plan. We will explain.
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Antero Trying to Collect $11 Million from Former Employee

Antero Resources is one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica (with major assets in West Virginia). As good and careful as companies like Antero are when hiring, sometimes there’s a rotten apple found in the barrel. Such was the case with a former employee who headed up the company’s operations in WV — where most of its drilling happens. The former employee took bribes and kickbacks from a vendor over a period of years (2012-2015), steering contracts to that vendor. The vendor’s performance was not as good as other competitors. At the end of years of litigation, Antero was finally awarded compensation from a jury, and a bit extra from a judge, to make up for the actions of their rogue employee (see Antero Prevails Against Corrupt Employee, Wins $12.9M at Trial). However, the employee has hidden the money in offshore companies, and Antero is still trying to collect.
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PA EHB Allows Moot Challenge to Already Drilled & Fracked Wells

For years, anti-fossil fuel haters have made the same false claims: Drilling and fracking will destroy the environment, contaminate your water, make you sick, and create death and destruction everywhere it’s tried. Then, a responsible driller, like Olympus Energy, comes along and drills wells not far from the lefties in Pittsburgh, and none of those things happen. The air is fine, the water is fine, and nothing gets polluted or contaminated. In other words, the left’s wild claims are exposed as outright lies. But that doesn’t stop the left, funded by shadowy sources, from continuing to sue and challenge time and again — even AFTER shale wells are already drilled and online!
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Cabot Shareholder Lawsuit re PA Fracking Violations Tossed by Judge

In October 2020, a law firm filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Cabot Oil & Gas shareholders against Cabot (now Coterra Energy), claiming the company “had inadequate environmental controls and procedures and/or failed to properly mitigate known issues related to those controls and procedures,” and that the company “failed to fix faulty gas wells which polluted Pennsylvania’s water supplies through stray gas migration,” and that the company, in general, hid all of this from the public — namely from investors (see Second Lawsuit Filed Against Cabot Claiming Securities Fraud). A similar lawsuit previously filed was canceled due to a lack of shareholders willing to sue. However, this second lawsuit sprouted legs and has continued. But here is where it gets murky…
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Court Orders Ohio Drillers to Produce Documents in Royalty Dispute

Back in the summer of 2020, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by an Ohio rights owner called TERA, an organization that appears to own the royalty rights for a number of leases with wells in Belmont County, OH, drilled by different producers, suing the producers for drilling into the Point Pleasant shale layer when the lease only mentions the Utica layer (see OH Landowners Sue Rice, Ascent, XTO, Gulfport for Drilling Too Deep). That lawsuit continues to grind on. Last week, a judge ruled the drillers being sued must produce certain documents sought by the plaintiff (rights owner).
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American Gas Assoc. Sues to Block Biden Reg Against Gas Furnaces

At the end of September, the Biden Dept. of Energy (DOE) published a new rule that cracks down on gas furnaces in homes, essentially phasing out many existing models and requiring new ones to meet onerous new standards (see Bidenistas Attack Your Gas Furnace with New DOE Regulations). The DOE now requires a 95% annual fuel efficiency standard, up from the 80% that was on the books before the new rule was published. On Monday, the American Gas Association, several other trade groups, and a manufacturer filed a legal challenge to the rule.
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Tennessee Sues BlackRock for Misleading Investors re Aggressive ESG

BlackRock is the largest investment firm in the world, with around $9 trillion of investments under management. Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, has pushed the so-called ESG (environment, social, governance) agenda for years. What the left and people like Fink mean by ESG is don’t invest in or use fossil fuel energy (E), everything is racist (S), and the government is always right when Democrats are in charge (G). Fink said earlier this year he would stop using the ESG term, although he continues to push the ESG agenda of divesting from fossil fuel companies (see Unrepentant BlackRock Won’t Use ESG Term, Still Forces Divestment). A number of states and even Republicans in Congress have pushed back against BlackRock’s ESG agenda, causing it to lose money. Now the company has a new concern: The State of Tennessee is suing BlackRock for violating consumer protection laws.
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Hope Gas Fights FOIA for Detailed Maps of 30-Mile Gas Pipe in WV

Hope Gas is a Local Distribution Company (LDC) that provides gas service to approximately 125,000 residential, industrial, and commercial customers in thirty-five West Virginia counties. The company owns and maintains more than 6,900 miles of pipelines that safely deliver West Virginia natural gas to many homes and commercial or industrial sites. In September, Hope Gas asked the WV Public Service Commission (PSC) of West Virginia for permission to build a new 30-mile pipeline in Monongalia County (see Hope Gas Seeks to Build 30-Mile Gas Pipe in Monongalia County, WV). Hope says the project, with an estimated price tag of $177 million, is necessary to meet the growing demand for natural gas in the Morgantown area and to ensure reliable service for existing customers.
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INGAA Files Lawsuit Challenging PHMSA’s New Pipeline Safety Regs

In May, the PHMSA issued a proposed new rule that would slap onerous and very expensive new requirements on pretty much all natural gas pipelines in the country, including 2.7 million miles of gas transmission, distribution, and gathering pipelines; 400+ underground natural gas storage facilities; and 165 liquefied natural gas facilities (see Biden DOT Issues New Partisan Methane Rules for All Gas Pipelines). The country’s top trade organizations representing the midstream (pipeline) industry filed comments pointing out major flaws in the new rule (see Major Pipeline Associations File Comments Against New PHMSA Regs). One of those organizations, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), filed a lawsuit earlier this week in federal court challenging the new rule.
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