Florida Follows WV, TX in Banning Investments in Woke ESG Funds
The State of Florida has jumped on the divest-the-diverstors bandwagon. We have no doubt that Larry Fink, founder and CEO of the world’s largest investment firm, BlackRock, is now VERY concerned about the pushback he’s getting for pushing investors to divest from fossil energy companies. Two of the three largest states in the county (by population)–Texas and Florida–have decided to ban investments in funds that promote ESG–environmental, social, and governance. ESG is just another way of saying divest from fossil energy companies. And now the diverstors, like BlackRock and other Big Banks and Big Investment firms that divest, are themselves the targets for divestment. We love it!
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BKV Corporation (Banpu Kalnin Ventures), the American shale drilling arm of Banpu of Thailand (Banpu owns 96% of BKV), originally entered the American shale sector by investing over $500 million in 2016-2017 to buy existing Marcellus wells and acreage in northeast Pennsylvania. Over the past seven years, BKV has become one of the top 20 gas-weighted natural gas producers in the U.S. BKV is now (with recent purchases) the largest natural gas producer in the Barnett Shale. The company is on a mission to be so-called net zero emissions (Scopes 1 & 2) by 2025. One of the ways the company plans to do it is by using ESG technology from Verde Co2 CCS, LLC.
Using rational arguments and facts and science to make the case that natural gas and natgas pipelines benefit the environment is akin to spitting in the wind when talking with environmental leftists. But we suppose the effort must be made–at least for appearances. Such is the case in New Jersey, where representatives from several utility companies and an academic think tank patiently, rationally, and carefully lay out the case for how using natural gas and gas pipelines will help NJ achieve its so-called clean energy targets by 2050. The utility reps and think tank use the intellectual equivalent of baby talk so nutty lefties in the Garden State will understand what’s being said. Is it all just spitting in the wind? Probably.
Will oil and gas companies put their extra cash to good use on more fossil energy exploration and production? Or will they blow it on the myth of green energy? Powerhouse consulting and accounting firm Deloitte seems to think O&G will begin to invest more in “green” capital expenditures, raising it from the current 5% average to perhaps 30%. We think that’s a waste. Deloitte has just published a new report, “Striking the Balance: How and Where Will O&G Producers Deploy their Cash?” (full copy below), which examines how O&G companies can “play a key role over the next decade in creating synergy between energy security and energy transition, while helping commercialize essential low-carbon technologies.” Energy “transition” is a misnomer. Read today’s article/interview with Enterprise Products Partners.
Here’s a bit of news only one major news outlet (the Wall Street Journal) has covered: Last week Jennifer Granholm, hands down the most incompetent Secretary of Energy ever to hold the office, sent a letter to seven major refinery companies threatening them that if they don’t scale back exports of gasoline, diesel, and other liquid petroleum products, Granholm will have old dementia Joe whip up an executive order slapping a ban on such exports. She’s making them an offer they can’t refuse.
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, announced in 2014, was supposed to be completed in 2018 and cost $3.5 billion. The project builder, Equitrans Midstream, now says MVP, which is 94% complete, should be done by the end of 2023 at a staggering cost of $6.6 billion. What happened between 2014 and today is that Big Green groups, many of which use foreign funding (from countries like Russia), have repeatedly challenged the project. Complicit and colluding judges have placed roadblocks in the way, preventing MVP from finishing. Given the ongoing opposition from the radical left, MVP asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in June to extend the time to complete the project until October 2026, just in case. On Tuesday, FERC granted MVP’s request.
New York State’s Governor, Kathy Hochul, and Attorney General, Letitia James, issued virtually the same press release yesterday to announce they’ve killed yet another small business in New York State. In an amusing display of vanity, Hochul and James (both Democrats and political rivals, James wants Hochul’s position as Governor) issued slightly different versions of the same press release, each putting her own name first in the release. The release says James R. Lee and his corporate affiliates–Lee Oil Company, Inc., Whitesville Producing Corporation, Whitesville Production Corp., Allegro Oil & Gas Inc., and Allegro Investments Corporation–owned or operated hundreds of oil wells in Steuben and Cattaraugus counties. A state lawsuit claimed some 400 of those wells were not properly plugged. The state won a $2 million judgment against Lee and his companies for lack of compliance, the biggest such award in state history related to plugging old wells.
Talk about irony! Scared of the potential impacts of the coronavirus and with the price of oil crashing in March 2020 (just as COVID was getting started), Royal Dutch Shell pulled out of a 50/50 joint venture partnership with Energy Transfer (ET) to build a new LNG export facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana (see 
Here’s something you won’t hear about or read in the Big Legacy Media…A group of 1,100 scientists and policy experts from around the world has joined together to establish a new group called Climate Intelligence (
In January 2020, the retirement systems for public employees of various municipalities, including the Allegheny County (PA) Employees’ Retirement System, filed a lawsuit against Energy Transfer and subsidiary Sunoco Logistics alleging top management made false and misleading statements about the construction of three Mariner East 2 and the Revolution natural gas pipeline projects in Pennsylvania. The lawsuit alleges because of those statements, the share price of their stock fell, and investors lost a boatload of money. In April 2021, the lawsuit survived a motion to dismiss by Energy Transfer (see 
Just when you thought you’d seen it all from the Communist left in this country (i.e. the Sierra Club and their foreign-backed affiliates), along comes another breathtaking attack. The Clubbers and their minions have filed a petition with the Bidenista-controlled EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), asking the EPA to classify natural gas and fuel oil furnaces throughout the country as a “Source Category” subject to emissions rules under the federal Clean Air Act, which is a clever way of saying the sale of new fossil energy furnaces used in homes and businesses should be banned on the assumption they cause pollution that violates the Clean Air Act.
If you live in Pennsylvania and listen to (or read) the media at all, you have likely heard about Senate Bill 106. The “short title” for the bill is this: “A Joint Resolution proposing separate and distinct amendments to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, providing that there is no constitutional right to taxpayer-funded abortion or other right relating to abortion; further providing for action on concurrent orders and resolutions, for Lieutenant Governor and for qualifications of electors; and providing for election audits.” Yeah, not so short. The bill is aimed at amending the PA Constitution to cover several important issues.