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PA DEP Slaps Energy Transfer Again – $2M Fine re Mariner East 2
Two weeks ago the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced the largest fine for a single company/project in its history. DEP slapped Energy Transfer (ET) with a $30.6 million fine for the construction and subsequent explosion of the company’s Revolution gathering pipeline in western PA (see ET Allowed to Fix/Restart Revolution Pipe…After Record $30M Fine). As part of the fine, DEP said ET could restart construction to fix Revolution. DEP also said ET could restart construction for another project: Mariner East 2 (ME2). Yesterday the other shoe dropped when DEP announced a new fine related to ME2 work–for $1.95 million.
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The gloves are off in Harrisburg. We previously told you about Gov. Wolf’s plan to have PA join with northeastern states in the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a regional alliance to slap a carbon tax on natural gas-fired electric plants (see 
PA Rep. Cris Dush, a Republican from Jefferson County, is about to introduce two bills that would either dissolve both the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) and Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) or withdraw PA from both compacts.
Aqua America, the nation’s second-largest water/wastewater utility company headquartered near Philadelphia, announced in October 2018 it would buy Peoples Gas, the nation’s fifth-largest natural gas utility company headquartered in Pittsburgh, for $4.275 billion (see 
Yes, 2019 was a tough year here in the Marcellus/Utica shale due to low natural gas prices drillers received for their gas. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the average spot price for natural gas at the benchmark Henry Hub was $2.57 per million BTUs (MMBtu) in 2019. But the news gets worse. EIA says that in 2020, because of increasing natgas production without a corresponding increase in demand, they predict this year’s average HH price will sink to $2.33/MMBtu. That’s 9% lower this year than last.
Last August MDN told you about a project in Keene, NH to convert an existing (antiquated) propane delivery system for the 1,200 customers in Keene over to cheaper, more abundant natural gas (see 
Yesterday MDN told you that 16 highly partisan, far-left Democrat attorneys general had filed comments opposing President Trump’s plan to allow LNG (liquefied natural gas) to be transported by special rail cars (see 
A slight tweak and correction to a story we ran last week in which we speculated that the first four mini-trains at Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island LNG export facility are now up and running (see 
Last April President Trump issued an Executive Order directing the Secretary of Transportation to write a new rule allowing specially constructed tanker cars for railroads (DOT-113 tank cars) to ship LNG, i.e., liquefied natural gas (see 
In December 2017 MDN told you about the bastardization of our justice system by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg funneled money to New York University (NYU) School of Law which in turn pays to hire radical (Democrat) attorneys to work inside the offices of the attorneys general in 10 different states, including Pennsylvania (see 
BlackRock Inc. is the world’s number #1 asset manager–with nearly $7 trillion in investments. The company invests in a LOT of companies that produce or are dependent on the production of fossil fuels. Important company to our industry. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, in a pair of letters (one to CEOs and one to investors) has just signaled BlackRock will begin to move away from fossil fuel investments. But (and this is a big but), it won’t happen overnight.