The Left Cooks Up a Recipe to Ban Fracking in PA Municipalities
The leftist members of the Allegheny, PA County Council have proven just how leftward they have lurched (and how unhinged they have become). In July, the Council voted to overturn the veto of a ban on drilling for natural gas under (never on top of) county parks (see Allegheny County Council Overturns Veto/Upholds Frack Ban in Parks). The Council’s action denies taxpayers millions of dollars in revenue to fix and repair and expand county parks. County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, a Democrat himself, vetoed the idiotic ban, but the Democrats of the County Council just couldn’t help themselves. They voted to override Fitzgerald’s veto. Full of themselves and their “victory” in making all county residents poorer, the anti-fossil fuel fanatics recently discussed how the same strategy could be used to shut down drilling in Allegheny County’s 130 municipalities and townships.
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Investors in the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) continue to write down their investments in the long-delayed project. MVP, which is 95% done and in the ground, travels from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, where it connects with other pipelines to carry Marcellus/Utica molecules to the southeastern U.S. RGC Midstream, which is owned by RGC Resources, is a very small investor in the project. RGC said this week it is taking a further impairment (writing down value) for its investment in MVP.
Spire Inc. is the owner and operator of the Spire STL Pipeline, a 65-mile pipeline that connects to and flows Marcellus/Utica gas from the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline in Scott County, IL, to residents and businesses in the St. Louis, MO area. Yesterday Spire issued its third quarter update and included a tidbit of information that had escaped us. In October, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a full, final, positive environmental impact statement (EIS) for Spire STL, the final step before issuing a permanent certificate for the pipeline to operate.
As things wrap up at the latest annual confab of leftist tyrants and wackos who seek to control the world by using the scare tactics of global warming, also known as the UN’s 2022 Climate Change Conference (COP 27), a group of countries calling itself energy importers and exporters (includes the U.S. as represented by the Bidenistas) issued a “joint declaration” that says, pretty much, they all hate fossil fuels and intend to stop using them in the next 20-30 years.
A new study from the American Gas Foundation (full copy below) concludes that the ability of the natural gas system to meet seasonal and peak day demands and to reliably deliver natural gas, even during high-impact events, represents an important and valuable resource that must be considered when designing future energy systems and building pathways to a low-carbon future. In other words, solar farms and windmills alone will NEVER be enough to provide reliable energy for the American consumer. If we want “resilience” (the capacity to recover quickly), we need natural gas. It’s that simple.
Equitrans Midstream (formerly EQT Midstream) owns the Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County, in Pennsylvania. Since Nov. 6th, one of the wells at the Rager Mountain area (a depleted conventional well drilled in 1965) has been leaking methane. Residents living in the area were first alerted to the leak by a very loud hissing or roaring sound, and the odor of natural gas. The smell (hydrogen sulfide) persists. Equitrans is trying to fix the leak and is making progress, but gas continues to escape between two of the well’s casings.
As we pointed out about a month ago, following his sellout of the country by voting for Joe Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act (a new name for the Build Back Better/New Green Deal), U.S. Senator Joe Manchin’s popularity in his home state of West Virginia sank into the sewer (see 
So much for the “peak gas” theorists out there who predict we’ve finally hit the top of natural gas usage in this country. It isn’t happening. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says, after analyzing its mountains of data, that the U.S. *increased* its usage of natural gas for all purposes, including exports, by 3.6% last year. We’re abundantly certain this year will show a similar increase.
It seems Africans have had about enough of the self-righteous preaching from the likes of radical leftist groups like Extinction Rebellion, a group that wants to deny African countries the right to extract and use their own abundant fossil energy supplies (in particular, natural gas). The African Energy Chamber (AEC), along with the president of the African Development Bank, pushed back against the “colonizers” who want to deny Africa the right to use its own resources. The right of African countries to extract and use natural gas has become a flashpoint issue at the UN’s 2022 Climate Change Conference (COP 27), which is happening right now in Egypt.
John Deskins, director of the Bureau of Business & Economic Research at West Virginia University, told members of the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Natural Gas Development at a meeting on Monday that the severance tax on natural gas production in the state is responsible for more than 20% of the state’s record-breaking tax revenue surpluses. Natural gas severance tax collections between July and October accounted for approximately 20% of the $575 million in total general revenue fund surplus tax revenue during that time period.
The Freeport LNG export facility, located in Quintana Island, Texas (near Houston), experienced an explosion and fire in early June (see 
The Bidenistas waited until the UN’s 2022 Climate Change Conference, called COP 27, was up and running (in Egypt) before *going to Egypt* to announce their latest attack on the oil and natural gas industry. At COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is “strengthening its proposed standards to cut methane and other harmful air pollution” in the oil and gas industry. In other words, yet another massive power grab in attempting to regulate oil and gas at the federal level, instead allowing O&G to be regulated at the Constitutionally-designated state level.