Left’s New Strategy: Buy O&G Companies, Force Them to “Go Green”
The left is insidious–and relentless. They thought they had a winning issue with so-called ESG, or Environment, Social, and Governance. Basically, what the left means by ESG is don’t invest in or use fossil fuel energy (E), everything is racist (S), and the government is always right when Democrats are in charge (G). One of the main pushers of the ESG agenda has been BlackRock, the biggest investment firm in the world with nearly $10 trillion under management. Recently Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, said he would no longer use the term ESG because he’s losing business (see Unrepentant BlackRock Won’t Use ESG Term, Still Forces Divestment). However, he will still push an ESG agenda, hiding his true purpose by using other language. However, leftists don’t like to remain in hiding. So they now have a new strategy: Just buy oil and gas companies and FORCE them to “go green” (i.e., stop drilling for oil and gas).
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We keep a close eye out for any credible news predicting which way the price of natural gas will head in the near and longer term. Everyone has an opinion about whether natgas will go higher, go lower, or stay the same–and why. Nobody could predict what would happen last year after Vladimir Putin declared war and invaded Ukraine. Gas prices when through the roof (along with oil prices) on the theory that Europe would run out of gas and the rest of the world, including the U.S., couldn’t meet the shortfall. But then we had a mild winter–in Europe and here at home. The world exited winter with extra gas sitting in storage. More supply with the same (or less) demand equals lower prices. And that’s exactly where we have been for months–lower prices. What about this summer? Will the price increase? Decrease? Stay the same?
Finally! On Monday, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) builder Equitrans asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to restart all remaining construction to install the final 6% of MVP in West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, FERC issued that permission. Ladies and gentlemen, start your bulldozers! Company spokeswoman Natalie Cox said crews will begin work “shortly” on all remaining construction. We don’t know what shortly means, but we hope it means this week.
In 2021, U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal, Chief Judge for the Southern District of Texas, approved deals for Chesapeake Energy to pay $6.25 million to class members of the three royalty lawsuits brought by Pennsylvania landowners (roughly 15,000 class members) and another $2.9 million to the lawyers involved (see 
In the early days of the shale revolution, Marcellus/Utica drillers (all shale drillers) were incentivized by shareholders to drill at any cost. The philosophy was “drill baby drill,” believing pipelines would somehow get built to handle the increasing production volume. Over the past three years or so, since about the time the pandemic began, things have changed. Instead of “drill baby drill,” the rallying cry is now “curtail volumes,” “delay completions,” and “game-time decisions.” M-U producers have learned to “walk the line” of matching production with local demand, storage, and firm pipeline capacity.
One of the biggest complaints from drillers and pipeline companies doing business with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), going back for years, is the lack of speed when reviewing and approving new permits. In particular, Chapter 102 (erosion and sediment control) and Chapter 105 (water obstructions and encroachments) permits. At a budget hearing in Harrisburg in March, then-Acting (now confirmed) DEP Sec. Rich Negrin presented a 10-point plan to improve the DEP’s response times in issuing permits (see 
The Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity Initiative (VCMI), formed with funding by some of the biggest funders of Big Green causes, has officiously announced the publication of a new “Claims Code of Practice” that private companies WILL adopt–or be forced out of business. The Code of Practice is aimed at forcing companies to stop using anything to do with fossil fuels, on the theory it will Save the Planet. Companies can disregard the Code of Practice (a supposedly voluntary standard) at their own peril. If you don’t hew to VCMI’s standards, you WILL be targeted.
The left thought it had won the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) battle and had stopped this 94% completed pipeline project cold. But then Congress passed the “debt ceiling” bill that forces the completion of MVP (see 
In April, MDN told you about a radicalized faction within the Pennsylvania Democrat Party trying yet another ploy to block all new Marcellus drilling in the state (see 
The Pennsylvania Senate voted yesterday to confirm Rich Negrin as the Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). No more “Acting” in front of his title. The vote was 48 to 1 to confirm, with the lone holdout being Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Adams). As we reported yesterday, Sen. Gene Yaw gave Negrin a grilling about several issues, one of them being the DEP’s apparent support for House Bill (HB) 170 that would end all new Marcellus drilling by using extreme setbacks (see 
The Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission operates the largest sewage treatment plant in the entire state of New Jersey–in Newark. When Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, the sewer plant lost power and dumped billions of gallons of raw sewage into the Passaic River. The Commission has a plan to prevent that from happening again: Build a tiny natural gas peaker plant to generate electricity. It would only be used to prevent such environmental damage again (i.e., rarely used). Yet Earthjustice and other radicalized leftists accuse the plan to the build the peaker plant as racist.
Domestic consumption and export of natural gas in the U.S. grew a combined 34.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), or 43%, from 2012 to 2022. One of the biggest reasons for the dramatic increase was a mass change from producing electricity with coal plants to using natural gas-fired plants instead. So says the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in a new post.
Earlier this year, British oil giant BP announced it would no longer publish its vaunted annual Statistical Review of World Energy, a publication it has issued each year since 1952 (see 
Everyone is fixated on hydrogen as the savior of humankind. However, there is no widespread demand for hydrogen because we still don’t have pipelines and appliances that can use pure hydrogen (see 
It really is sad (and angering) to behold the tactics of the left. Their favorite #1 tactic is fear. If the left can convince you the end is near à la “climate change” and “ticking time bomb pipelines” and “bomb trains” and “radiation” and “water contamination” and other incendiary (false) claims about fossil energy, they have you. The left thought it had won the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) battle and had stopped this 94% completed project cold. But then Congress passed the “debt ceiling” bill that forces the completion of MVP (see