Mountain Valley Pipe Permit in Va. Delayed After Montana Decision
Disgusting anti-fossil fuel lunatics have hassled the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the Midwest with frivolous lawsuits for years. Last week an Obama-appointed liberal judge serving in Montana, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris, vacated a permit for the Keystone project, once again stopping construction. The permit vacated was issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is called a Nationwide Permit 12–the equivalent of a Section 401 permit under the Clean Water Act–allowing projects like pipelines to be built across or under streams, rivers and “wetlands” (swamps). The problem with the judge’s action is that it potentially affects all pipeline projects across the country using an NP12 permit–including the delayed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile Marcellus/Utica gas pipeline from West Virginia to southern Virginia.
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There is an ongoing question of whether or not the Ohio Marketable Titles Act (MTA), which impacts Utica shale rights, can be used to return previously severed mineral rights back to a surface landowner, or whether the MTA is superseded by Ohio Dormant Minerals Act (DMA). In February 2019, Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals said the MTA *does* still apply to mineral rights (see 
A federal court in Pennsylvania has just verbally slapped down THE Delaware Riverkeeper–both the umbrella Riverkeeper organization and (by name) the person who claims to be THE riverkeeper of the Delaware, Maya van Rossum, for a transparent and pathetic attempt at blocking the Mariner East 2 pipeline project with yet another frivolous lawsuit. In the decision, the judge says the litigation tactics of the Riverkeeper organization “do nothing to protect the environment.” The judge also said to impose liability against ME2 in this case “would offend basic principles of fairness and effect an absurd result” and “violate due process.” Ouch.
We see a very positive sign that the U.S. Supreme Court is potentially interested in accepting and ruling on a case of tremendous importance to the oil and gas industry. The case is PennEast Pipeline v State of New Jersey. NJ is attempting to block the PennEast project by denying it access to run across tracts of land either owned or controlled by the state, claiming federal eminent domain authority does not apply to state-owned land. NJ won the case in lower courts and PennEast appealed it all the way to the Supremes, who have now taken an active interest. No, they haven’t officially accepted the case…yet. But they have just signaled a strong interest.
Last year MDN told you about New Jersey-based Omni Energy Group and their application to build two new injection wells in Belmont County, OH near St. Clairsville (see 
In February Williams official gave up on building a long-delayed project to flow natural gas from northeastern Pennsylvania into central New York, called the Constitution Pipeline (see 
Although it seems counterintuitive to say this, maybe NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his legion of radicalized Democrats have done New York landowners a favor with a permanent ban on fracking, passed as part of the most recent state budget (see 
In 2015 a group of Ohio landowners did what landowners had previously done in Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere–they filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy claiming Chessy had screwed them and about 1,000 other Ohio landowners out of a collective $30 million in royalty payments (see 
This is truly disappointing. A few weeks ago we told you that Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled a long-running lawsuit involving Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) will continue on through the court system (see 
The Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA), a non-profit representing people and businesses who work in the energy infrastructure supply chain, filed an “amicus curiae” (friend of the court) brief in support of PennEast Pipeline’s request to get the U.S. Supreme Court. PennEast has asked the Supremes to overturn a lower court decision that allows states like New Jersey to usurp federal authority by blocking PennEast, a FERC-approved pipeline.
If there’s a silver lining in this tragic COVID-19 coronavirus crisis, this may be it: Radicals who want to deny everyone the right to use fossil fuels with their unending campaigns of protests and legal actions are pretty much stopped in their tracks. They can no longer make mischief to block pipelines and shale drilling and the use of natural gas by ordinary citizens (via municipal bans). The virus has stopped most court cases, public hearings, and even the right to assemble and protest. Antis are apoplectic and scared that pipeline and drilling projects will get approved and move forward because antis can’t bully public officials and courts into bending to their twisted anti-fossil fuel views.
Before Lord Obama and the EPA Obamadroids left office, they inflicted a great deal of damage to this country via onerous and outrageous new regulations. When President Trump took office, he immediately began to roll back and rightsize regulations at the EPA (and elsewhere), scaling back overregulation to common-sense regulation. We’re talking about regs like the horrible so-called Clean Power Plan. The Obamadroids and Big Green lobby (one and the same, with gobs of money) have litigated Trump’s efforts to restore sanity to EPA regulations every square centimeter of the way.
In a disappointing decision, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court recently ruled a long-running lawsuit filed against Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) will continue on through the court system. For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. Part of the ordinance was tossed. However, Commonwealth Court has decided the town can continue to try and make a case that it should be able to override state law with its home-cooked regulations because by doing so they will somehow protect citizens’ health, which the town says is allowed under PA’s poorly-written Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA).