Ohio AG Succeeds in Blocking $2B in Nuke Payments to FirstEnergy
We continue to peel back the layers of the rotten, smelly, stinky onion that is Ohio’s House Bill (HB) 6, a law granting billions (plural) to FirstEnergy in an attempt to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants. FirstEnergy is accused of bribing legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $60 million (see FirstEnergy Involved in Bribery Scheme to Pass $1B Nuke Bailout Law). It is the biggest bribery scandal in Ohio history. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has been hammering FirstEnergy with lawsuits since the bribery scandal was first revealed. It looks like Yost (and consequently Ohio residents AND the Ohio Utica Shale industry) has won.
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Now that Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) has outsmarted radicalized environmental groups like the odious Sierra Club by changing the type of permit they will use to finish the 92% complete project (see today’s lead story), antis are hoping to continue blocking the project by convincing the Democrat judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a FERC order from last December that allows MVP to resume certain portions of construction (see 
It was exactly one year ago that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in THE most consequential lawsuit for Marcellus Shale drilling we’ve seen, a case called Briggs v Southwestern Energy (see 
The Trump administration worked for four long, hard years against the radicalism of leftist Democrats to overturn what was called Obama’s “Clean Power Plan” (CPP)–an odious and misnamed plan that assassinates coal and mortally wounds natural gas power generating plants (see 
Last August we told you about the politically-motivated prosecution (by the Chester County, PA District Attorney’s office) of two men connected to a security firm providing off-duty constables to protect Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline construction sites (see 
EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in the United States, is asking West Virginia officials to remove two judges from hearing cases brought by landowners against the EQT relating to royalty disputes for alleged improper deductions. EQT wants Judges Timothy Sweeney and David W. Hummel Jr. to be disqualified from at least three cases (that we know of).
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost continues to hammer FirstEnergy Corporation. In November Yost filed a lawsuit to block the collection of $150 million provided for under House Bill (HB) 6, aimed at propping up FirstEnergy’s unprofitable nuclear power plants in the state (see 
In November 2019 the U.S. District Court of Pennsylvania ruled that K. Petroleum Inc. (KPI), headquartered in Gahanna, OH, had breached a contract with Penneco Oil by not paying Penneco for gas flowing through KPI’s gathering pipeline system for wells owned and operated by Penneco. Yesterday the same court finally (after more than a year) completed calculations for what KPI owes Penneco. The tab comes to $511,292.15.
In mid-December, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) issued an environmental impact statement (EIS) that supports plans for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to run through 3.5 miles of woodlands, and under the Appalachian Trail, in the Jefferson National Forest in Monroe County in West Virginia, in and Giles and Montgomery counties in Virginia (see 
In a brilliant move aimed at boxing in the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), two northeastern Pennsylvania State Senators–Gene Yaw and Lisa Baker–along with members of the PA Senate Republican Caucus, filed a lawsuit yesterday against the DRBC, accusing the quasi-governmental agency of “taking” the property rights of PA residents without just compensation under the law.
Last June New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the court to not even consider hearing a case involving PennEast Pipeline (see 
Yesterday U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani issued a couple of rulings in the Wayne Land and Mineral Group (WLMG) v. Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) lawsuit that should encourage landowners in eastern PA whose property rights have been “taken” by the DRBC. The DRBC has prevented landowners in areas like Wayne and Pike counties from drilling for shale gas under their land for more than a decade.
FirstEnergy is up to its metaphorical rear-end in alligators. Not only has the Ohio Supreme Court blocked (for now) the collection of annual $150 million payments from the residents of Ohio given to FirstEnergy to prop up its uneconomic nuclear power plants, but multiple (over a dozen) lawsuits have been filed against the company by some of FirstEnergy’s biggest investors alleging fraud that has caused the company’s stock price to plummet.