Big Green Scared – NRDC Tries to Horn in on DRBC Fracking Lawsuit
In May 2016, a landowner in Wayne County, PA filed a lawsuit against the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) asking a judge to declare that the DRBC does not have jurisdiction to prevent the construction of a natural gas well (see Wayne County, PA Landowner Sues DRBC Over Fracking Ban). The case bounced around various courts and is now back in federal court in Scranton, PA where a judge will decide whether shale drilling is a “project” under regulations that govern the DRBC. Anti-fossil fuel haters at the National Resources Defense Council (aka Rockefeller family) are terrified the judge is about to rule against the DRBC (and them), and so has filed a friend of the court brief to try and snow (or intimidate) the judge.
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A tiny 2.1-mile pipeline looping project in western Massachusetts has been fought tooth and nail for over two years by anti-fossil fuel zealots. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the project, subsequently refused to “rehear” its decision, and now Big Green groups (with loads of money) have colluded to sue FERC in federal court in an attempt to emasculate the agency because it won’t consider mythical man-made global warming when approving projects like this one.
Last July MDN broke the news that LOLA Energy had filed a lawsuit in Greene County, PA against EQT for allegedly drilling shale wells under property EQT formerly leased, but property for which the leases had lapsed and were subsequently scooped up by LOLA Energy II (see 
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit) heard oral arguments yesterday in a case of major importance to the future of all federally-approved pipeline projects. The case revolves around the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) use of something called a tolling order in approving Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline (in the PA Marcellus). Big Green groups launched the lawsuit in an effort to strip away FERC’s right to use tolling orders when considering requests to “rehear” decisions to approve pipelines.
A Standford University professor who sued another scientist who dared to criticize his wacky views on renewable energy in a journal article sued the scientist and the journal for defamation. It took a while for the lawsuit to play out (two years), but a judge in the case recently ruled the Standford prof was wrong in filing the lawsuit and must now pay the attorney’s fees for those whom he sued. Sweet justice.
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.
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