Bill to Bring Cracker-Type Investment to Northeast PA Resurrected
In April 2019, Pennsylvania State Rep. Mike Turzai, Speaker of the House (who has since resigned and left), along with a group of conservative Republicans, announced a plan for the future of PA (see PA Republicans Launch “Energize PA” to Counter Wolf’s “Restore PA”). Called Energize PA, the plan as codified in eight bills would “make it easier for companies to get environmental permits, encourage development on abandoned industrial sites, and make it cheaper to run natural gas lines to businesses.” One of the eight bills is House Bill (HB) 1100, a bill offering a tax incentive, a reduction in taxes, IF a company builds a new petrochemical plant in the state–particularly in the northeast “dry gas” area of the state.
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Yesterday the Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted 130 to 71 (with overwhelming bipartisan support) to pass House Bill (HB) 2025 which would block Gov. Wolf’s attempt to force PA into a northeast carbon tax scheme. We’ve written plenty about Wolf’s plan to force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI (see 
Shame on Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell for prostituting himself to Gov. Tom Wolf by teasing a forthcoming “report” that says by enacting a jobs-killing carbon tax in the state it will generate 27,000 new jobs, add $1.9 billion to the PA economy, and even save lives. (Maybe the carbon tax can part the Red Sea too?) These are outrageous lies. Perhaps McDonnell should have resigned if Wolf was pressuring him to lie like that. Better to resign with dignity than damage your reputation for becoming known as a paid liar.
Can a single pipeline suddenly going offline in the Marcellus/Utica cause the biggest daily drop in natural gas production across the country–ever? Apparently it can. Yesterday TC Energy’s Columbia Gas Transmission subsidiary announced an unplanned outage (for maintenance work) for the Mountaineer XPress pipeline in West Virginia (near Leach, Kentucky). The “force majeure” outage knocked nearly 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of gas flows offline until at least next Monday, July 13.
Last November MDN told you that Northeast Natural Energy, a small-to-midsized driller headquartered in Morgantown, WV, had lost an arbitration battle and owed a group of landowners in central Pennsylvania $7.9 million in payments for NOT drilling on their land (see 
Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) yesterday. We’re interested mainly in the natural gas numbers. The expert number crunchers at EIA predict the price of Henry Hub traded gas will average $1.93 for all of 2020 (although EIA predicts the price will rise in Q420 to $2.46). The report also says U.S. LNG exports are taking a nosedive this summer. From June through August at least 110 LNG cargoes have been canceled–meaning a decrease in 75% of our LNG exports. That will have a big impact on gas drillers.
Environmentalist groups don’t get a pass here on MDN for their so-called good intentions. Groups like the Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, Environmental Defense Fund, National Resources Defense Council, and others are actually *harming* the environment with their actions to block natural gas and oil pipelines. They are demonstrably making the environment worse! Why does mainstream “media” allow them to get away with harming the very thing they profess to love and want to protect?
In May a Montana federal judge appointed by Barack Obama capriciously blocked the use of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit (NP) 12 for all pipeline projects across the country (see 
Are you surprised that Pennsylvania’s big money nuclear power lobby loves PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to tax nuke plants’ biggest competitor, natural gas-fired plants, out of existence? We aren’t surprised. Nuclear Powers Pennsylvania, lobbying group for PA’s nuclear power plants, is urging PA legislators to drop a bill that will block Wolf’s insane attempt at forcing the state to join a group of liberal northeastern states in something called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI forces its members to slap high taxes on energy that produces carbon dioxide–the stuff you breathe out with every single breath you take. Ludicrous.
Brian Lego, research assistant professor in the West Virginia University (WVU) Bureau of Business and Economic Research, says while canceling the $8 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project is a blow to WV because of lost jobs, the even bigger impact will be less new markets for Marcellus/Utica gas, meaning growth in M-U drilling will be stunted.
On Sunday, June 28, Chesapeake Energy, with major operations in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus, filed for bankruptcy (see 
We’ve had enough of activist leftist judges attempting to shut down the will of the people by using obscure legal loopholes as their justification–when the real reason for the action is to block President Trump and fossil fuels. A U.S. District Court judge appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, Judge James Boasberg (D.C. Circuit) has ordered the Dakota Access oil pipeline in the Midwest to stop flowing oil because he doesn’t like it.
Dominion Energy has decided to exit the natural gas pipeline and storage business, selling off its vast network of pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica (and beyond) to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for $9.7 billion ($4 billion in cash, the rest in assumed debt). In a related announcement, Dominion said it is throwing in the towel and canceling the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project that would have stretched from West Virginia to North Carolina. We are in grieving. This is a tremendously sad day–not only for Marcellus/Utica drillers and landowners, but for the families of pipeline workers who will now remain out of high-paying jobs. You have the Sierra Club and other radicalized green groups to thank.
On Sunday a week ago (June 28) Chesapeake Energy filed for bankruptcy (see