DC Circuit Guts PHMSA Reg re Shut-off Valves on Gathering Pipes
In November 2021, the Bidenistas initiated a massive power grab to transfer the right of individual states to regulate local natural gas gathering pipelines to the federal government’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (see Massive Power Grab Proposed by Biden DOT: Regulate Gathering Lines). The oil and gas industry asked Biden to pause the power grab by 3-5 years. In April 2022, the Bidenistas rejected that request, so the GPA Midstream Association (later joined by the American Petroleum Institute) sued the Dept. of Transportation and its PHMSA division to block the new regulations. PHMSA agreed to pause enforcement until May 2024 (see PHMSA Backs Down, Pauses New Gathering Pipe Reg After Getting Sued). However, the pause in enforcement didn’t stop the PHMSA from floating onerous new one-size-fits-all regulations on gathering pipelines. Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit) gutted the new PHMSA reg for gathering pipelines.
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Three New York City pension funds–the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, the Teachers’ Retirement System, and the Board of Education Retirement System–were sued this week by municipal employees for breaching their fiduciary duty and divesting from fossil energy companies. The plaintiffs allege the divestments have resulted in the loss of billions of dollars that otherwise would have gone to retirees. The pension funds went woke and decided they could no longer support companies that (in their wrong opinion) are creating catastrophic, man-made global warming.
Yesterday 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. The lawsuit requests the court assess huge fines and force it 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). In other words, the radicals seek to shut down the $10 billion plant and keep it shut down–throwing 600 permanent employees out of work. Nice people at the Environmental Integrity Project and Clean Air Council, eh?
Since 2015 we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township (Indiana County, PA), a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Big Green group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well proposed by Pennsylvania General Energy (
Last November, MDN told you about a lawsuit filed by a family in Washington County, PA, against Chevron (now EQT) for drilling and fracking done in 2011-2012 near the family’s home (see 
During yesterday’s quarterly phone call with analysts to discuss the 1Q23 performance of Equitrans Midstream, a big topic of conversation was the 94% completed (but stalled) Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Equitrans (builder of MVP) CEO Thomas Karam said, “The path to an MVP completion during 2023 is narrower but based on the diligent and comprehensive work being done by the staff at various state and federal agencies and the expected overall permitting timeline, we believe the possibility of commencing forward construction this summer still exists.” He also said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circuit) and their prospective rejection of new permits for the project is not “that dire of a position.” We 100% disagree.
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), which treats the 17 counties in Pennsylvania under its jurisdiction as a fiefdom, has colluded with the leftists of the Big Green group Damascus Citizens for Sustainability to “settle” a lawsuit brought by the group against DRBC “forcing” the DRBC to further restrict and ban wastewater from conventional wells from being spread on roadways (dirt roads) in the 17 PA counties located behind the Iron Curtain of the DRBC.
Disappointing news has been a constant this week–and it’s only Tuesday! Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court proved that sometimes it’s not so supreme. The high court breathed new life into a long-running lawsuit funded by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners who are arguing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia.
We appear to finally be at the end of an eight-year road with respect to new shale drilling regulations in Pennsylvania adopted back in 2016. Two days ago, the PA Supreme Court overturned a Commonwealth Court decision that blocked the Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) ability to control shale drilling near schools and public playgrounds. In October 2016, after five years in the making, PA adopted new shale drilling regulations called Chapter 78 (see 
Yesterday MDN brought you the fantastic news that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in liberal California, had overturned a ban on hooking up new homes and businesses to natural gas in Berkeley, CA (see 
A rare victory for the forces of good. Berkeley, California, a bastion for liberal nuts (there’s a reason the city’s nickname is Berserkely), thought it was all cutesy when, in 2019, it passed the “first-in-the-nation” municipal ban blocking new construction (homes and businesses) from hooking up to natural gas pipelines. Berkeley said it wants to do its part to combat global warming. A few months later, the California Restaurant Association (CRA) filed a federal lawsuit challenging the city’s ability to pass a law banning new natural gas hookups. After a lower court ruled in favor of the city, the CRA appealed it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Yesterday the judges of the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the CRA, telling the city it’s trying to regulate gas stoves by denying pipeline hookups–something that only the federal government can do.
Last November, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak. The well ended up leaking roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see 
If leftists can redefine what is and what is not “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), they can pretty much control you and what you can and can’t do with your own private property. WOTUS, according to the Bidenistas, is pretty much anything down to mud puddles, as they proposed earlier this year (see