Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Franklin County | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Ohio | Regulation | Statewide OH
OH Court to Rule on Challenge of Law Allowing Drilling Under Parks
In January, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see OH Gov. Signs Bill Expanding Drilling in State Parks, NatGas “Green”). The new law allows shale drilling under (but not on top of) Ohio state-owned land. HB 507 encourages (pushes for) more drilling under state-owned land. Even though drilling on state-owned land is about to become a reality thanks to this law, it was another provision of HB 507 that torqued off the Big Green Left even more–officially recognizing natural gas energy as “green” energy. It still bothers them, and they’ve gone to court to get it changed.
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Yesterday, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Mountain Valley Pipeline’s (MVP) emergency application to vacate the stays of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circuit) that are blocking completion of MVP. The Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023, signed into law on June 3 by President Biden, specifically removes legal jurisdiction for MVP from all courts but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit). Yet the 4th Circuit recently blocked two key permits, by extension blocking all construction of MVP. Last Friday MVP filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court (see 
Last summer, MDN brought you the news about a lawsuit against Diversified Energy and EQT over the issue of old and “abandoned” wells in West Virginia (see 
For years we’ve railed against what we consider the theft of royalties and bonus payments by the state of Pennsylvania from landowners with creeks and rivers running through their leased (for shale drilling) property. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) claims that under a centuries-old law, the state of PA “owns” the property under “navigable” waterways–including rivers and streams (see 
Driftwood LNG, a 27.6 million tonnes of LNG per year facility that will cost on the order of $16.8 billion to build, has not made an official final investment decision (FID) to proceed with building the FERC-approved project. However, construction began on the project in March 2022 (see 
Yesterday MDN told you that on Monday, the clown judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (i.e., the 4th Circus) illegally stayed a THIRD permit issued by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to traverse a piddly 3.5 miles of the federally-owned Jefferson National Forest (see 
Three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (i.e., clown judges from 4th Circus) yesterday Congress, the President, and the entire country the judicial equivalent of the double-barrel middle finger by illegally ruling to block the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) through 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest–for a fourth time. The three judges–Judge Stephanie Thacker, appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, Judge James Wynn, appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, and Chief Judge Roger Gregory, appointed by William Jefferson Clinton–are (in our opinion) corrupt and should immediately be impeached and removed from the bench. Their malfeasance has gone on long enough.
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. In 2021, Olympus applied to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project. They succeeded when town supervisors rejected the Dionysus well pad (see 
TransCanada Corporation, which renamed itself TC Energy in 2019, made a play for and bought out/merged in U.S.-based Columbia Pipeline Group in 2016 (see 
Here’s the sad end of a sad chapter in Ohio’s history–the conclusion to the largest bribery scandal in the state’s history. We’re referring to Ohio House Bill (HB) 6, a law granting billions (plural) of dollars to FirstEnergy to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants. FirstEnergy bribed state legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $61 million to a small group of insiders, including former Speaker of the House Larry Householder (see 
Finally! On Monday, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) builder Equitrans asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to restart all remaining construction to install the final 6% of MVP in West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, FERC issued that permission. Ladies and gentlemen, start your bulldozers! Company spokeswoman Natalie Cox said crews will begin work “shortly” on all remaining construction. We don’t know what shortly means, but we hope it means this week.
In 2021, U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal, Chief Judge for the Southern District of Texas, approved deals for Chesapeake Energy to pay $6.25 million to class members of the three royalty lawsuits brought by Pennsylvania landowners (roughly 15,000 class members) and another $2.9 million to the lawyers involved (see 
The left thought it had won the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) battle and had stopped this 94% completed pipeline project cold. But then Congress passed the “debt ceiling” bill that forces the completion of MVP (see 
We have a federal court decision from an interesting case to share. From June 2005 to October 2007, U.S. Energy Development Corporation contracted with Superior Well Services (of Pennsylvania) to frack natural gas wells owned by U.S. Energy in (of all places) New York State. Yes, fracking used to (still does) happen in NY–at least with conventional wells. U.S. Energy filed a claim against Superior in October 2007, saying Superior had damaged 97 of its wells during fracking by using the wrong kind of chemical mixtures in its fracking fluid.