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DC Circuit Rules NEXUS Pipeline Approval by FERC was Righteous
Last year Big Green lobbyists using the City of Oberlin, Ohio contested the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision to approve the Enbridge/DTE Energy NEXUS pipeline, a $2 billion, 255-mile pipeline from the Ohio Utica Shale into Michigan that’s been flowing for years connecting to a pipeline that exports some of the gas into Canada (see Oberlin, OH Still Fighting to Shut Down Long-Running NEXUS Pipe). Big Green/Oberlin claimed FERC’s approval of NEXUS was faulty because some gas gets exported to Canada and is not “in the public interest.” A federal court ruled last week against Oberlin, siding with FERC’s decision to approve the NEXUS project.
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Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA that changes everything. It’s hard to overstate just how important the court’s decision is. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and the attorney generals from 18 other states sought to limit the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its misinterpretation of the so-called Clean Air Act in order to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants. The court ruled in favor of WV against EPA, meaning EPA cannot regulate coal- and natural gas-fired power plants out of existence, as it was seeking to do. Let’s all revel in this MAJOR victory!
The clowns who occupy the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circus) have rejected a request by Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to appoint a new panel of three judges to hear cases involving the 94% completed pipeline (see 
The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) is a special court set up in PA to hear appeals of decisions made by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). In February 2021, a landowner (three people living at the same address) in Susquehanna County, PA, filed a lawsuit with the EHB against the DEP and Coterra Energy (formerly known as Cabot Oil & Gas) alleging Coterra’s drilling program nearby had led to polluting their water well. As of last week, the case was dismissed and the Pittsburgh attorney for the landowner (for the first time ever) was sanctioned by the EHB.
The province of Quebec, Canada, with a huge supply of Utica Shale gas sitting beneath it, passed a new law in April–Bill 21–outlawing all oil and natural gas production throughout the province (see 
Columbia Gas, a subsidiary of Canada-based TC Energy (formerly TransCanada), wants to build a tiny 3.37-mile, 8-inch pipeline under the Potomac River from Maryland to West Virginia. The Eastern Panhandle Expansion, as it is called, is being blocked by the lefties in Maryland (see 
Big Green groups are rejoicing that they have convinced a New York State judge to rule that an existing natural gas-fired power plant on the banks of the Hudson River, Danskammer Energy, will not be allowed to upgrade its gas turbines from older, more polluting turbines to newer, more efficient and less polluting turbines. Such is the evil mind of Big Green that they rejoice in such a “victory.” Big Green, including the Sierra Club and Earthworks, prefers more pollution rather than allowing a company to improve operations for those who live nearby. How whacked is that?
Last October Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is now running for governor, indicted Energy Transfer with 48 enviro-crimes related to the building of the Mariner East pipeline project (see 
The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) partially dismissed a challenge brought by Philly-area State Senator Katie Muth. She seeks to block Eureka Resources from moving forward with the construction of a new shale wastewater recycling facility in Dimock, PA–a location hours away from her own district. The EHB ruled that Muth has no standing under the PA Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA) to bring a challenge. The proposed facility is not in her district and there’s nothing that ties her to that location.
It’s time to remove three radicalized Democrat judges who have consistently (12 of 14 times) voted against Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in appeals brought by Big Green groups. The three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (we call it the 4th Circus) are bigoted and prejudiced against natural gas pipeline projects. We’re talking about 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. These three leftwing judges find the smallest, nitpicky things to use as an excuse to block the completion of the 94% completed, 303-mile MVP project. MVP has just filed a request with the 15 members of the 4th Circuit to appoint three new judges in their place.
In his first two days in office, Joe Biden declared war on the oil and gas industry. One of the first things he did was to revive an interagency working group on the “social cost” of greenhouse gas emissions and directed the issuance of an “interim” cost (see 
The radicals of the Clean Air Council (CAC) are claiming a (very small) victory in their campaign against processing NGLs at the Marcus Hook refinery located near Philadelphia. CAC is CACkling that they have forced Energy Transfer, builder of the mighty Mariner East (ME) pipeline system (a pipeline that CAC couldn’t stop), to back down on how permits are issued for the Marcus Hook facility–the place where NGLs from ME end up for processing and loading for export. The end result is…well…not much. Nothing will really change. The same volume of NGLs will still flow to Marcus Hook, and the same volume of NGLs will be loaded onto ships and exported to other countries. The only thing that changes is that ET spends more time and pays more money to obtain a single large permit instead of two separate, smaller permits. We’ll explain.