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FERC Responds to NY Radicals re Pipeline Impacts on Global Warming
This post is about a pipeline project we’ve written quite a bit about over the past few years–Dominion Energy’s New Market project that ever-so-modestly expands an existing pipeline in Upstate New York. But at its heart, the issue is much deeper. Anti-fossil fuel radicals are challenging this project, in court, as a way to force the government to consider man-made global warming when approving such projects.
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This is fun to watch. The monied interests in Westchester County, NY (suburb of New York City) are outraged that beginning in March Consolidated Edison will no longer accept new natural gas customers (see 
Hi-Crush Partners, a frack sand vendor, announced yesterday they’ve cut a long-term deal to supply Northern White frack sand, which comes from Wisconsin, to CNX Resources for fracking Marcellus and Utica wells. So why is that a big deal?
A 30-inch segment of Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Transmission Company (Tetco) interstate natural gas pipeline exploded one week ago today, sending two people to the hospital and destroying two nearby homes when fires from the blast spread (see 
There’s just no getting around the obvious–that the shale industry is once again heading into something of a dip. We’re not just talking about shale oil drillers scaling back drilling new wells in places like Texas and North Dakota. We’re talking about big gas drillers in the Marcellus/Utica who are signaling that 2019 will see less spending and less drilling, although production won’t decline.
A couple of developments to share with you about the Mariner East 1 NGL pipeline which has been completely shut down since Jan. 21 when a new sinkhole appeared in Chester County exposing a few feet of the bare pipe (see 
We didn’t think it would take long for the oil and gas industry to push back against efforts to raise the state’s severance tax from 5% to 6% and use the “extra” money to fix secondary roads in the state (see 
MDN previously reported that last Sunday a new sinkhole appeared exposing a tiny section of the Mariner East 1 (ME1) NGL pipeline in Chester County, PA, prompting Sunoco Logistics Partners to close down ME1 in the Greater Philadelphia area (see 
Coincidentally on the topic of royalty lawsuits (see today’s companion story, 
Since 2012, Pennsylvania has collected the equivalent of a severance tax from Marcellus Shale drillers via something called an impact fee. Same concept as a severance tax. You drill a well, gas comes out, you pay a tax. Except with an impact fee you pay whether or not anything comes out of the ground–a more reliable source of tax revenue than a severance tax!
Why do politicians never seem to grasp the obvious? Distressingly, we’re now reading that a West Virginia State Senator, Randy Smith (Republican, Tucker County), wants to add another 1% to the already-high 5% natural gas and oil severance tax, in order to use the money to fix back roads across the Mountain State.
Utility company Consolidated Edison recently announced it will slap a moratorium on hooking up new customers for natural gas in Westchester County (NYC suburb) beginning March 15 (see