RINO PA Sen. Tomlinson Introducing 5% Severance Tax Bill
We expect liberal Democrats like the far-left PA Gov. Tom Wolf to keep harping on a Marcellus-killing severance tax on natgas production in PA, even though the state already taxes production via an impact fee (i.e. tax). That’s what lib Dems do! They take money from economic producers and give it away to economic parasites who vote them into office–like teachers’ unions. But we don’t expect Republicans to sponsor such dumb initiatives.
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Shell has calmed the troubled Ambridge waters–that is, the Ambridge Water Authority waters. Shell hit a snag with plans to build its Falcon Ethane Pipeline when the Ambridge Water Authority claimed construction of the pipeline under several streams feeding the Ambridge reservoir would endanger the drinking water for 30,000 people (see 
Honest to God, we want to know, how do people get this stupid? Four adult men–three so-called farmers and one 38-year-old egghead student–chained themselves to a fossil fuel-belching farm tractor in the middle of a busy road in Connecticut to block a shipment of turbines on the way to a new natgas-fired electric plant under construction…in order to protest fossil fuels.
Did the Pennsylvania Supreme Court err in its judgment declaring so-called “stripper wells” can be taxed under the 2012 Act 13 law, slapped with an impact fee assessment, if those wells produce more than 90 thousand cubic feet per day (Mcf/d) of gas in a single month (see 
Despite setbacks from Big Green groups launching a blizzard of lawsuits and regulatory challenges, Equitrans’ (EQT Midstream) 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is now 70% built (see 
Consolidated Edison (Con Ed) and National Grid–both large utilities that operate in New York City and its suburbs–are warning that unless new natural gas pipelines are built to the NYC region, they will slap a moratorium on hooking up any new natgas customers. Andrew Cuomo’s chickens are now coming home to roost.
This news is a bit dated, but still interesting and is new for us: Last October a group of landowners in Tioga County, NY filed a lawsuit to force the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to quit dragging its feet and set a date to consider the groups application to allow LPG (liquefied petroleum gas, i.e. propane) fracking for a shale well.
Three years ago lawsuits filed by some 200 West Virginia residents against Antero Resources were combined into a class action lawsuit (see 
According to RBN Energy, “U.S. production of natural gas liquids is projected to increase by 17% this year, and by another 10% in 2020.” NGLs cover a variety of hydrocarbons. Two NGLs, propane and butane, are further classified as LPG–or liquefied petroleum gas. Of the four “smaller” LPG export facilities here in the U.S., two-thirds of all exported LPGs last year came from one–Energy Transfer’s Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia.
We’ve been tracking a story since November about a new, smallish (but very important) LNG export plant coming to Bradford County, PA, to Wyalusing (see 
At the beginning of each new year the West Virginia legislature fires up its annual 60-day session. WV legislators are part-time and only meet for two months out of the year. (How we wish that were the case here in NY!) For a number of years running, the oil and gas industry’s legislative agenda has pushed certain new bills. This year is different.
Our friend Tom Shepstone (