Last week the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee held an informational meeting to hear from the regulated community, including the shale industry, on their experiences with Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) permit review processes. By all accounts legislators (and the DEP) got an earful.
Read More “Shale Industry Challenges PA DEP on Slow Permit Reviews”
We’ve covered, extensively, the situation in Westchester County, NY (northern suburb of New York City), where Consolidated Edison has placed a moratorium on new natural gas customer hookups for the next 4+ years (see Moratorium on New Gas Hookups in Westchester County Begins Today). The moratorium has Westchester economic leaders and politicians in a panic (see Westchester County Soiling Itself re NatGas Moratorium). Said leaders and politicians have just formed a “Gas Moratorium Task Force” to search for solutions.
Read More “Westchester County Forms Gas Moratorium Task Force…To Do What?”
Antis pinned their hopes that they could get the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval for Dominion to build a couple of compressor stations in upstate New York, thereby forcing FERC to consider mythical man-made global warming in ALL pipeline decisions. The case had the makings of being a “landmark” case. Yesterday antis lost their landmark case when the court ruled the party bringing the lawsuit, Otsego 2000, didn’t have standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place.
Read More “Fed Court Rules Against NY Antis in “Landmark” Dominion Pipe Case”
Hey Westchester County, NY: You have a model to look at for your own moratorium on (blocking of) new natural gas customers. It’s located upstate, in Lansing, NY, just outside of college town Ithaca. The local utility (NYSEG) wanted to build a short pipeline in 2017 to supply new customers with natgas, but was blocked by crazies who irrationally hate fossil fuels (see Lansing NY Officials Fight Back Against Tinfoil Hat Fossil Fuel Haters). Since that time the pipeline did not get built, and businesses and homeowners who wanted to build in the town have gone elsewhere. There’s the unmistakable stench of economic death in the air. That’s the cheery future that awaits you, Westchester.
Read More “Natgas Customer Moratorium Killing Ithaca Suburb of Lansing, NY”
Several members of the Marcellus Shale industry spoke at a meeting of the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce yesterday, including MDN friend George Stark from Cabot Oil & Gas. George is director of external affairs. At the meeting he said the Marcellus industry has made tremendous strides in the last 10 years and will be around for decades to come. He said, “It’s booming in our area.” George also said Cabot is having trouble filling vacant jobs.
Read More “Cabot O&G Having a Tough Time Filling Open Jobs in NEPA”
Two Democrat New York State legislators, Senator Jen Metzger and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, are floating parallel bills that would outright ban any new natural gas-fired electric plants or natural gas pipelines in the state. Really bizarre stuff. They’re calling this lunacy “Freedom from Fossil Fuels.” Want to run a new gas pipeline from the local utility to a new housing development or commercial business park? Forget it. No new gas customer hookups *anywhere* in the state–not just in Westchester County (see Moratorium on New Gas Hookups in Westchester County Begins Today). Such would be result of this truly insane plan.
Read More “2 NY Dem Lawmakers Push Bill to Ban New Fossil Fuel Facilities”
A radical Pennsylvania environmental group called PennEnvironment is pushing a media narrative that a “collection of 88 Republican and Democratic Pennsylvania state legislators” have joined together to introduce and endorse a truly insane plan that would require all (as in 100%) of electricity generated in the Keystone State to come from so-called renewables by 2050–just 30 years from now. It will NEVER happen, but that’s beside the point. Our point is that one named Republican is part of this “bipartisan collection” of 88 leftists. The lone Republican is PA State Sen. Tom Killion from the Philadelphia area.
Read More “Legislation Requiring PA Get 100% Electric from Renewables DOA”
Yesterday the Pennsylvania State Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee held a hearing on the reconfirmation of Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell. After the hearing the members of the committee voted 8 to 2 to recommend reconfirming McDonnell. During the hearing there were some fireworks between committee chairman Sen. Gene Yaw and committee member Andy “Tony Soprano” Dinniman.
Read More “PA Senate Committee Votes to Reconfirm DEP Sec. Pat McDonnell”
Huntingdon County, PA landowner Ellen Gerhart, adamantly opposed to the Mariner East 2 pipeline being constructed across her land, tried to block construction on her property. She had her day in court last August and was found guilty of violating a judge’s previous order to stop interfering with construction (see Mariner East 2 Pipeline Protester Sentenced 2-6 Months in Jail). Gerhart was sentenced to jail and a $2,000 fine. What did she do to deserve jail time?
Read More “ME2 Pipeline Protester Jail Sentence, Fine Upheld in Court”
Whew, that was close. We’ve had a concern that if Chevron ended up buying Anadarko Petroleum (for Anadarko’s Permian Basin oil assets), it might lead to Chevron pulling back from their drilling program in the Marcellus/Utica (see Permian Love Story: Chevron Buying Anadarko in $50B Megamerger). We don’t have to worry any more. Even though Anadarko signed a deal to sell itself to Chevron, Occidental Petroleum made a bid to buy the company too (see Occidental Petroleum Offers 14% More than Chevron to Buy Anadarko). There’s a breakup clause in the signed Chevron deal. Anadarko would have to pay Chevron $1 billion for leaving them at the altar.
Read More “Chevron Leaves the Altar with $1B, Waves Goodbye to Anadarko”
A Pennsylvania federal judge has ordered a former EQT employee to turn over his cell phone to EQT so they can have experts examine it for deleted text messages to Toby Rice and others helping him. You may recall EQT accused two fired workers of stealing company secrets and sharing those secrets with Toby and Derek Rice, who are trying to take over EQT (see EQT Accuses Fired Employees of Colluding with Rice Boys). EQT maintains one of the fired workers has evidence on his phone that can corroborate their claims of collusion. Hence the judge’s order.
Read More “Court Lets EQT Examine Cell Phone of Worker Accused of Helping Rice”
So-called reporters, like some at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, must have known they were breaking the law by using confidential information (sealed under a court order) in some of their anti-shale articles. Range Resources, fighting against an out-of-control Attorney General (Josh Shapiro) who wants to charge the company with crimes, wants to depose those reporters to try and find out who, exactly, broke the law in leaking information that is sealed by court order. However, a county judge won’t let Range do it. Not yet, anyway.
Read More “SWPA County Judge Rules Range Can’t See Reporters’ Notes/Sources”
In October 2012, after a rigorous review by New York’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) during the State Environmental Quality Review, the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) submitted by Cricket Valley Energy Center in Dutchess County was accepted and approved. Construction of the 1,100 megawatt plant (to fed by PA Marcellus gas) began in July 2017 (see Second NY NatGas-Fired Elec Plant Breaks Ground in Hudson Valley) and is due to be completed early next year. As it gets close to completion, anti-fossil fuel neighbors from across the street are asking the DEC to perform a new study of the facility before allowing it to start operation. They’re making outrageous claims that gas-fired plants may cause autism.
Read More “Neighbors of Almost Completed NY Gas-Fired Plant Want New Study”
Here’s an interesting and fun fact: In just 12 years electricity generated by coal plants has gone from powering 87% of Ohio’s homes and businesses to just 47%. So-called renewables (solar and wind) make up a whopping 3% of Ohio’s electric generation. So what’s replacing coal? Natural gas, which now generates 34% of the state’s electricity. Gas still hasn’t beaten coal, but give it a few more years and it will.
Read More “NatGas Replacing Coal for Power Gen in Ohio; Renewables Tiny 3%”
On multiple occasions we have outlined the reasons why federal agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) exist–in order to prevent individual states from harming their neighbors economically. An individual state can’t block a new interstate highway, or the trucks and cars that travel it, from entering their state. It’s the same for power transmission lines and for pipelines. Yet New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is violating that law by rejecting interstate pipelines.
Read More “A Short History Lesson on Why NY’s Pipeline Bans are Illegal”
One of the few “green” advocates we respect is Michael Shellenberger, a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” Green Book Award Winner, and president of Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization. His articles often appear on the Forbes website (we’ve linked to many of them in our “Best of the Rest” roundup). Shellenberger, one of the few environmentalists to endorse and defend fracking, recently penned an article that accuses the fracking/shale industry of a double standard when it comes to their opposition to bailing out nuclear plants with government subsidies.
Read More “Is Shale Industry Hypocritical Opposing Nuke Bailouts in PA, OH?”