Steubenville, OH Votes to Lease City-Owned Land for $7,000/Acre
After months of deliberation, Steubenville (Jefferson County), Ohio, City Council voted to accept a bid and proceed with leasing the city’s mineral rights to the oil and gas industry, including areas near residential neighborhoods and Beatty Park. Some residents voiced strong opposition, citing threats to the park’s ecosystem, health concerns, and insufficient public involvement, urging the council to reject bids or form a resident-inclusive committee. Fourth Ward Councilman Royal Mayo voted against it, questioning fracking’s health effects. First Ward Councilman David Albaugh supported it, noting that surrounding areas are already fracked and that no well pad would be built in Steubenville. The money (over $1 million!) is expected within 90 days. Read More “Steubenville, OH Votes to Lease City-Owned Land for $7,000/Acre”
What a disappointment. We don’t know why, but at yesterday’s U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure meeting on the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), an amendment to overturn the Delaware River Basin Commission’s (DRBC) authority to ban fracking was NOT introduced. The WRDA passed and now goes to the House for a vote — without the amendment that would have overturned the DRBC frack ban, which illegally strips landowners’ property rights in Wayne and Pike counties (in Pennsylvania). The only conclusion we can draw is that the Republican leadership, for whatever reason, didn’t want it attached to the bill. Meaning they caved. Again, what a disappointment. 
Last year, we reported on a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision issued in the case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Game Commission v. Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust (see 
New York Governor Kathy Hochul yesterday had the ignominious distinction of signing an Executive Order establishing the nation’s first statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, temporarily pausing state environmental permit issuance for up to 1 year. New York is CLOSED for business. We wonder if this decision jeopardizes a $100 BILLION project in the Syracuse area: a new chip-making plant by Micron. The Micron plant will build the chips used by hyperscale data centers — the same data centers Hochul just banned. How’s that for a kick in Micron’s teeth? 
A little over two weeks ago, MDN reported that THE Delaware Riverkeeper was sounding the alarm (the perennial “sky is falling” group) that the Penn America LNG export facility had come back to life and is planning a new LNG export project near Philadelphia (see 
The far-left activists who occupy and control the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) are shocked and dismayed that their iron grip on power is slipping away. As we reported yesterday, Congress is close to adopting an amendment to the federal Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) that would block the DRBC and its sister organization, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), from banning hydraulic fracturing (and shale drilling) within their respective jurisdictions (see 
Pipeline giant Williams announced a $5.34 billion investment led by Blackstone Credit & Insurance, in partnership with Apollo and KKR, to fund its five behind-the-meter Power Innovation projects: Socrates, Apollo, Aquila, Socrates the Younger, and Neo. All five projects are located in Ohio and will use Utica (or Marcellus) shale gas. In exchange for the money, the investors receive a 49% noncontrolling ownership stake, while Williams retains 51% ownership and operational control, plus a buyout right between years 7 and 14. While the headline numbers focus on high-finance metrics, the practical, on-the-ground effect of this deal directly reshapes the Appalachian natural gas landscape, pipeline dynamics, and the regional race to power the AI-driven data center boom. 
Four Washington County, Ohio, Class II injection wells voluntarily stopped operating July 1-2 after state regulators from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) said they may be affecting nearby oil and gas production wells. The wells are Redbird Nos. 4 and 5, American Growers No. 1, and Nichols No. 1-A, although the Nichols owner disputed that operations had ceased at that well. ODNR and operators will develop corrective plans, while a third-party consultant examines nearby private water wells. Activists want broader, long-term groundwater testing, noting that Redbird No. 4 waste has previously migrated more than 5 miles underground. It’s important to note that the alleged migration of fluids affected other (conventional) oil and gas wells, NOT water wells. 
An important (precedential) court ruling to alert Pennsylvania surface (and mineral rights) owners to. The Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled earlier this month that an oil-and-gas mineral rights owner does not have an automatic, unrestricted right to place a well on a separately owned surface estate. When the deed or lease contains no express surface-access right, the mineral owner must establish that using that surface is “strictly necessary”—not merely reasonable—to reach and develop the underlying oil and gas. The case in question concerns land in Westmoreland County but will almost certainly apply to other locations as well. 
Energy Transfer has asked the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) to restructure and dissolve the Sunoco Pipeline Company, separating its pipeline assets between two new entities. Energy Transfer NE NGL Pipelines LLC would own and operate the Mariner East system and other natural gas liquids pipelines, while Energy Transfer RP Pipelines LLC would control refined petroleum product pipelines. The proposal also would transfer Sunoco’s public utility operating certificates. Formal protests and intervention petitions are due July 27, 2026. 
For the past decade, landowners in Wayne and Pike counties in northeastern Pennsylvania have unfairly been denied the ability to profit from fracking on (and under) their property, simply because they happen to live inside the imaginary boundaries of the Delaware River Basin, an area under the iron hammer control of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC). The DRBC, unlike its counterpart in the Susquehanna River Basin (SRBC), is controlled by left-wingers. They falsely claim that allowing fracking anywhere in the basin would destroy the water supply of 14 million people. Congress is now on the cusp of overturning this ongoing tragedy. 
On July 12, the Pennsylvania Senate and House passed, and Governor Josh Shapiro signed into law, a $50.84 billion General Fund budget. It was only 12 days late this year. This is a net-positive budget for the Marcellus/Utica industry. It contains no new taxes or fees on production, delivers a long-sought modernization that unlocks the deep Utica play, and builds legal scaffolding favorable to gas-fired power for data centers. The only new obligations — full-cement plugging and (for midstream-adjacent projects) data-center reporting — are modest. 
Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage (EGTS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company (Warren Buffett’s company), filed a new project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in July 2025 (see 
A long-running and favorite tactic of the environmental left is to use our own judicial system against us. On the federal level, foreign-backed groups like the Sierra Club, Earthworks, Food & Water Watch, and others have (in the past) challenged new pipeline or drilling projects, filing appeal after appeal up the line, blocking construction until said lawsuits were resolved. Last June (2025), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) took away the left’s ability to block construction while lawsuits are filed and played out (see 
Northeastern states outside established data center hubs are positioning for major growth that could reshape regional natural gas demand. Surprisingly, blue state Maryland is emerging as a secondary data center hub, supported by large hyperscale projects, new gas-fired generation, and transmission upgrades. Delaware is constrained by coastal regulation, while Massachusetts, Connecticut, and even the Communist state of Rhode Island are seeing proposals (although there is stiff opposition in all of those states). Maine is weighing large-load rules as a mill conversion advances, and New Hampshire and Vermont remain limited.