Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Companies | Health Impacts | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Olympus/Huntley & Huntley | Pennsylvania | Westmoreland County
Anti-Drilling Activist Bad-mouths Fracking at Murrysville Hearing
A paid political activist who is not a doctor but works for the so-called Physicians for Social Responsibility (left wing group), told a hearing in Murrysville (Westmoreland County), PA on Wednesday that she could not prove fracking leads to negative health affects on those living near the activity, but in the very next breath she essentially said it does, saying there’s a “strong correlation” between fracking an ill health. Her proof? A list of Big Green-paid for “health studies” (propaganda campaigns).
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Anadarko Petroleum, as an independent company, is no more. The company has officially sold itself and is now merged into Occidental Petroleum in a cash, stock and assumption of debt deal worth $55 billion. At one point Chevron had a deal to buy Anadarko, but Anadarko left them at the altar, along with a $1 billion deal abortion payment (see 
We don’t know if you watched any of the most recent round of Democrat presidential debates. We couldn’t hack it personally. But some brave souls did, including Katie Klaber, former (founding) head of the Marcellus Shale Coalition and now head of her own consulting firm. Katie points out Bernie Sanders said the oil and gas industry is willfully destroying and planet and said those of us in the industry are engaging in “criminal activity.” You might just dismiss it as “just crazy Bernie,” he always talks that way. Except other candidates said equally disturbing things about the fossil fuel industry too. Katie says it’s time for candidates to stop vilifying our industry. She’s right.
One of the most liberal governors in America, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, continues his campaign to kill the Marcellus Shale by slapping a severance tax on top of an already-high impact tax. He’s now getting a little help from his lib friends at the polling unit at Franklin & Marshall College. When asked a misleading question, a recent poll of 627 PA residents found 69% of them “strongly” or “somewhat” favor Wolf’s Santa Claus promises in his “Restore PA” plan–if it’s funded by a severance tax on Marcellus Shale.
Monday evening the Mariner East 2 pipeline was down for routine maintenance at a pump station in Chester County, PA (near Philadelphia). When workers relit a pilot in a flare used to burn off excess gases, there apparently was some accumulated gas in the flare stack and it ignited, creating a loud boom. Nobody was injured, there was no danger. Yet that incident is now being labeled an “explosion” by anti-fossil fuel activists and their sycophants in the press.
We have a proud tradition in America of vigorous debate and free speech. We have protests. We still, for now, have a free press where we can express our ideas–whether others agree with us or not. But some on the environmental left go too far. They don’t just protest, they break the law. Some even become violent. Take the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, as an example.
Last Thursday the Texas Eastern Transmission Company (TETCO) pipeline exploded near a trailer park in Lincoln County, Kentucky (see 
Marcellus/Utica gas hitches a ride to the Gulf Coast to feed several LNG export facilities. We previously outlined how some gas flows to Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG plant via Williams’ Transco system (see 
PennEast Pipeline is a $1 billion (or $1.2 billion, depending on the source) new greenfield pipeline project from Luzerne County, PA to Mercer County, NJ. PennEast will flow PA Marcellus gas to markets in NJ. The project has faced numerous lawsuits and regulatory blockades, much of it in NJ. We won’t recount all of the ins and outs. What we will tell you is that PennEast is about to overcome another such government blockade by submitting a new Freshwater Wetlands Permit application to the NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP).
Pennsylvania state officials in the Gov. Tom Wolf administration (yes, lib Dem Tom Wolf) are drawing up plans, a “playbook,” for how to redevelop the increasing number of coal-fired electric generating plants that are closing in the state. Most of those plans boil down to this: redevelop those sites as natural gas-fired electric plants and/or petrochemical plants. Both are tied directly to PA’s prolific Marcellus Shale. Who knew there was such common sense inside the Wolf Administration?
Last November MDN told you that Northeast Energy Center, backed by Liberty Energy and NorthStar Industries, is proposing to build an LNG liquefaction plant in central Massachusetts (see 
Liberty Utilities in Keene, New Hampshire wants to convert its 1,200 or so customers over to using natural gas–convert them from using propane. Natgas is cheaper (for customers) and has more reliable supplies. Liberty asked the NH Public Utilities Commission for permission to convert in 2017. Of course anti-fossil fuel lunatics objected, and the PUC delayed. Now, over two years later, the PUC has granted permission to Liberty to move forward with converting its commercial customers at one location.
It appears the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has become politicized. Why is it that leftists (like Va. Gov. Ralph Northam) politicize what are supposed to be impartial government agencies? The DEQ has issued a “stop work” order to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) for construction activities along a tiny two-mile stretch in Montgomery County. Fine, if there are issues, stop the work. It’s the highly politicized and inappropriate press release the DEQ issued that accompanied the stop work order we object to.