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Philly Dem Senator Loses Bid to Shut Down ME Pipelines
In April 2018, a Chester County, PA (Philadelphia area) Democrat State Senator by the name of Andy Dinniman (who we think looks like Tony Soprano) filed a formal, legal complaint with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC), asking the PUC to shut down and keep closed all of the Mariner East pipeline projects–ME1, ME2, and ME2X (see Philly Dem Senator Tries to Shut Down ME2 Pipe Construction). It took long enough, but the PA Commonwealth Court, whom Sunoco appealed to, ruled yesterday that Dinniman’s complaint is meritless. The court ordered the PUC to dismiss Dinniman’s complaint.
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The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), which once supported (in court) Sunoco Logistics Partners method of requesting permits for the Marcus Hook facility (near Philadelphia), has just flip flopped and change sides, now siding against Sunoco and the permits the DEP itself issued for the Marcus Hook facility. DEP is now siding with the radical Clean Air Council demanding that all of the work at the Marcus Hook facility be done under a single emissions permit, not separate permits.
Last October MDN brought to your attention a lawsuit filed by a Washington County, PA couple, Robin and Thomas Pflasterer, against Range Resources (see 
Since late last year we’ve tracked a lawsuit brought by radical antis and the City of Oberlin, OH against the long-completed NEXUS Pipeline project. Last Friday the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the court that handles challenges to regulatory agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), refused to drop the case and told FERC to once again try to justify the project in light that some of the gas gets exported to Canada.
The new leadership at the top of EQT continues to have a major impact on the company and its relationship with landowners and (in this case) entire states. Last year EQT launched an effort to overturn WV’s Senate Bill (SB) 360 (see 
FirstEnergy continues its desperate attempt to prevent a referendum measure from hitting the fall ballot in Ohio that would overturn a recently passed (very bad) law that bails out FirstEnergy’s failing nuclear power plants in the state to the tune of $1.5 billion. Earlier this week we told you FirstEnergy is running tinfoil hat commercials claiming China would soon control Ohio’s electric grid if the bailout bill is overturned (see 
You can’t say we didn’t see this one coming. Last week the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ruled that the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) took too long to deny a federal Clean Water Act “Section 401” water crossing permit for the Williams Constitution Pipeline project (see 
In February, prior to the July takover by Toby and Derek Rice, EQT filed lawsuits in both Pennsylvania and federal courts against two former employees it had fired, claiming the employees, before they were fired, had systematically copied confidential information from company computers and took it with them when they left (see 
In the American legal system those accused of wrongdoing, including those afraid of being entrapped by so-called law enforcement (like the Chester County, PA District Attorney Tom Hogan) are entitled to legal representation–to protect themselves from the abuses of people like DA Hogan. Yet when they do so, avail themselves of legal representation, Hogan gets bent out of shape. Could it be he *has no case* and wants to bully people into admitting to things they are not guilty of? Or force them to falsely testify to things the prosecutor wants to hear?
In June MDN told you that the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Retirement System is not happy with their investment in EQT shares of stock, so they’re suing the company (see 
In May, Columbia Gas Transmission was forced to haul the State of Maryland into court over the state’s refusal to grant an easement to drill a tiny 3.5-mile pipeline under the Potomac River (see 
In 2017 a group of Ohio landowners did what others 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 
Hoping that lightning strikes twice with the “judges” at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circus) who read children’s books like The Lorax and use them in their decisions, deep-pocketed Big Green groups have filed a new lawsuit with the quirky judges asking that they overturn federal approvals issued to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Big Green hopes the clown judges will overturn approvals for MVP the same way they did for Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project.
Chester County, PA District Attorney Tom Hogan has sunk to a new low. We told you back in January Hogan and his highly-paid staff, motivated by politics, were investigating Energy Transfer, their Sunoco Logistics division and anyone/anything to do with ET’s Mariner East pipeline projects, looking for “crimes.” All he found were minor violations by two off-duty PA constables (see