FERC Should Stop “Shaming” NatGas, Return to Original Charter
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was established in 1977 as a replacement for the Federal Power Commission. The agency’s mandate was to determine whether wholesale electricity prices were unjust and unreasonable and, if so, to regulate pricing and order refunds for overcharges to ratepayers. Over the years FERC’s mission grew to include the licensing and regulation of hydropower projects; the approval and regulation of interstate oil and gas pipelines; and ensuring the reliability of the nation’s electric power grids. FERC was created as an *economic* agency, NOT an environmental agency. It’s time for FERC to return to its original charter and quit trying to use health and environmental impacts (non-economic factors) to steer decisions on projects.
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Once again Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, is turning accidents, including an accident that caused an explosion of the newly completed
We can’t resist a good railroad story. We’ve always loved them (we know, we’re weird). Here’s a good railroad story for you: Frack sand company Smart Sand, Inc., headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, has just opened for business and is shipping frack sand to a brand new transloading facility in Waynesburg (Greene County), Pennsylvania.
Anecdotally in reading articles about electric power production in New England, we know that almost all electricity is produced in the region by natural gas (unless they run low, then they use fuel oil). We also know a majority of the electricity produced in the PJM region, including the M-U area, is also produced by natural gas. What we didn’t know (but do now) is that the vast majority of electricity in the southeastern U.S. is produced by natural gas. Most of the molecules feeding southeast gas plants come from the M-U.
This *really* has our blood boiling. The same Democrat politicians in New England who have blocked new natural gas pipelines from the Marcellus (just 200 miles away) to their region, preferring so-called “renewable energy” instead, have just asked the hapless, incompetent Secretary of the Dept. of Energy, Jennifer Granholm (a fellow Democrat) to restrict LNG exports so their constituents don’t have to suffer the pain of their (the politicians’) decision to block pipelines. We’re talking about Massachusetts’ two U.S. Senators, Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren and Ed “Lackey” Markey, and Sen. Pat “Leaky” Leahy whose home state of Vermont has banned all fracking and blocks pipelines. Talk about chutzpah!
A month ago MDN brought you the news that UGI Corporation, one of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility companies, had cut a deal to buy the Stonehenge Appalachia Midstream natural gas gathering system in Butler County, PA, for $190 million (see
National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). For several years the company has fought a battle to run a tiny pipeline to its Greenpoint, Brooklyn facility, to provide extra natural gas. That project is being investigated by the Biden administration on charges of racism (see
In recent weeks and months, MDN has beat the drum about the high price of natural gas and electricity (generated by burning natural gas) in New England (
Last year the state of Texas passed a new law that says the state government and its agencies will not do business with banks and investment firms that refuse to fund or do business with fossil fuel companies. A few weeks ago MDN told you the West Virginia State Senate is rapidly advancing a similar bill (see
This one doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for us. Late last year utility giant Consolidated Edison (ConEd) colluded with and supported the efforts of radicalized leftists in New York City to vote through a ban on new natural gas hookups starting next year (see
The world’s (and North America’s) largest oilfield services companies, including Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes, are all saying the same thing: Drillers are getting ready to drill more this year. Some sub-sectors of the drilling market, like completions, are already “sold out” according to Halliburton. Good luck to drillers who want to add more completions crews right now. Prices are going up for fracking fleets and other services offered by OFS companies.
New York State has become aggressively hostile to any business remotely connected to fossil fuels. NY is openly prejudiced and discriminates against oil and natural gas companies. Increasingly the state is rejecting “bitcoin miners” that use natural gas (or God forbid, coal) to produce electricity to power some serious computers (see
Last Thursday the NYMEX Henry Hub futures contract for natural gas went on a wild ride, closing up $1.99 (46%) from the previous day (see
Full-scale war in Eastern Europe, with Russia set to invade and annex Ukraine, seems closer now than at any time since the breakup of Yugoslavia and, before that, World War II. One very important key NATO member is resisting calls from Joe Biden to send troops and threaten sanctions against Russia if it invades: Germany. Why? Because Germany sucks on Russia’s oil and natural gas teat for a significant portion of its energy. Is there a connection between the global crisis half a world away and the Marcellus/Utica?