PA Public Utility Commission Gets New Commissioner: Ralph Yanora
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) has 522 employees, including attorneys, rate and service analysts, auditors, economists, engineers, motor transit and railroad specialists, communications specialists, safety inspectors and enforcement investigators. The agency is responsible for oversight of public utilities operating in the Commonwealth of PA. Some of that responsibility includes oversight of natural gas pipelines–like the Mariner East trio of pipelines. So the PUC is an important agency for the Marcellus industry. There are five Commissioners who oversee the agency. One left in March and a replacement was just appointed by the state legislature.
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Last year a hedge fund manager tried pitching a fund that would “bet against” shale drillers to investors. At the time he was “basically kicked out of every office in New York City.” Good! However, the now-former hedge fund manager has an advisory service that in a sense also disparages the shale industry, but perhaps performs a valuable service for the industry. The new company uses data that is number-crunched from state records, applying assumptions that are “more realistic” than numbers offered by companies in investor presentations when it comes to how much the wells they *will* drill will produce. That is, this new service provides a more realistic look at reserves–proven and otherwise.
Williams has temporarily withdrawn three of four applications with the New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to build its Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project. Just last month NJDEP gave Williams an extra month with the permits (see 
Andrew Cuomo is a desperate man. There’s nothing as dangerous as a cornered leftist politician whose policies have been revealed to cause pain and suffering for the very people he’s supposed to serve. That’s what has happened to man-child Andy–and desperate politicians who have been exposed for all to see do crazy things. In Andy’s case, he goes berserk. Cuomo has instructed his own state Public Service Commission (PSC) to look for ways to revoke the operating license of utility company National Grid, which supplies natural gas to all of Long Island (and the NYC boroughs that sit on Long Island, Brooklyn and Queens). Why?
Opposition to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to have PA join with northeastern states in the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) continues. Big opposition. Earlier this month Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf went completely off his rocker with a power-grab to force PA into a regional alliance to tax natural gas-fired electric plants out of existence (see 
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo followed a blindly stupid political philosophy of anti-fossil fuelism by blocking the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline, with tragic consequences–thousands of potential natgas customers who cannot connect to the local utility. Is New Jersey heading for the same scenario under Gov. Phil Murphy? If the state rejects the PennEast Pipeline, that answer is a resounding YES. We’ve seen this movie before.
The stakes are about as high as it gets: “The immediate disruption of the natural gas industry,” says PennEast Pipeline. We’re referring to a terrible decision in September by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that disallows PennEast from using the delegated power of eminent domain to cross properties either owned by, or with easements granted to, the state of New Jersey (see 
All we can say is, shame on FirstEnergy. They hired people to block petition gatherers trying to get signatures for a referendum for the November ballot. The tactics used can only be described as bullying–sometimes physical. Workers are trying to get enough signatures on a petition to place a referendum on the November ballot. The referendum, if adopted, would overturn House Bill 6 which grants a $1 billion bailout to FirstEnergy’s economically failing nuclear power plants (see 
Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, is not only pathetic, he’s transparent. Over the past few weeks multiple people have criticized Cuomo for his no-new-pipeline policies that have lead to pain and suffering for some New York City and Long Island residents who cannot connect to natural gas because of a coming shortage. The New York Post, Wall Street Journal and other media outlets have piled on. So too have President Trump and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. All in the past seven days! What does little Andy do? Blame shift.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee “reported out” (i.e. approved) Senate Bill (SB) 694, which is the Senate version of what was House Bill (HB) 247, a bill which allows fully leased parcels that are part of one drilling “unit” to be combined with parcels in a different unit–“cross unit drilling.” The full Senate voted to approve the bill on September 25 by a vote of 49-0 in favor. Yes, a unanimous vote, with both Republicans and Democrats voting to approve it in the Senate. We’re now one vote away from final passage–the full House. There’s little doubt it will pass.
The last time Equitrans talked about the status of its 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline project (from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA) was July, when the company said the cost for the project had ballooned to $5 billion and the in-service date delayed until mid-2020 (see 
The fight to overturn Ohio’s House Bill 6, a $1 billion bailout (freebie) given to FirstEnergy to prop up its uneconomical nuclear power plants is getting nasty. Really nasty. We previously told you about FirstEnergy’s lying commercials that claim China controls the state’s natural gas industry–because a Chinese bank loaned some of the gas-fired plants money (see 
Andrew Cuomo, the man-child governor of New York, is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Or week. For the past few weeks the New York Post has repeatedly hammered Cuomo over his decision to block the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project that would bring critical new supplies of natgas to Long Island and New York City. The Wall Street Journal also joined in by hammering Cuomo over the same issue, pointing out Cuomo is to blame for thousands of utility customers of National Grid who now cannot connect, yet Cuomo is forcing National Grid to add them anyway (see