No More “Acting” for Pat McDonnell – Confirmed PA DEP Secretary
No more “acting” for Pennsylvania’s Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). In May 2016, DEP Secretary John Quigley was fired for using a PRIVATE email account to collude with his Big Green friends to try and bully PA’s legislators into supporting his onerous proposed regulations (see Smoking Gun: Copy of the Email that Got John Quigley Fired). Richly deserved. The man who took his place as Acting Secretary is Patrick McDonnell, a 19-year veteran of the DEP. Pat made it clear from the beginning he’d like to move from “acting” to full Secretary. It took Wolf long enough, but finally last September he put Pat’s name forward as permanent DEP Secretary (see Gov. Wolf Nominates Pat McDonnell to Head PA DEP, Finally). We’re not sure what the holdup was, but the PA Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee finally held a hearing and grilled McDonnell a few weeks ago, after which the panel voted to recommend he be confirmed (see PA DEP Acting Secretary McDonnell Will Soon Drop “Acting” from Title). We’re happy (we think) to announce that Pat McDonnell was confirmed by a full vote by the PA Senate. The vote was unanimous…
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Helmerich & Payne is the largest drilling rig contractor in the U.S. Their rigs can be found all over the world. In the U.S., H&P may H&P rigs are located in Texas, in the Permian basin, drilling for oil. Although a fair number are also in North Dakota and Colorado. If you look at H&P’s rig locations from last July (the most recent stats they publish, on their website), you’ll find 13 active H&P rigs in the Pennsylvania–in the Marcellus Shale. A year later, we are assuming (based on recent data) that those numbers have gone up everywhere, including the Marcellus. Even if H&P’s rig count is still just 13 in the PA Marcellus, that represents 38% of the active rigs in the Marcellus as of April (see 
In December 2016, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) unveiled new regulations to clamp down on methane emissions and other other air pollution that allegedly comes from shale drilling sites (see 
MDN previously reported on a $900 million Marcellus gas-fired electric generating plant coming to Orange County, NY (see 
Believe it or not, Shell previously hired a third-party consultant to perform a traffic study in the area where Shell plans to build a $6 billion ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA. Based on the findings and recommendations of that study, Shell has begun to secure parking spots for construction workers that will descend on that location to build the plant–beginning later this year. One of the recommendations is to limit the number of parking spots to no more than 1,500 at any one location. Shell currently has three locations lined up and (mostly) ready to go, enough for 3,100 parking spots. At its peak, the project will employ something like 6,000 workers. So either Shell will line up more spots, or maybe workers will carpool…
Leftist anti-fossil fuelers are only too happy to poll anything and everything–except for what really matters. How do the VOTERS in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina feel about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP)? ACP is Dominion Energy’s $5 billion, 594-mile natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. The Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), the “voice of the energy consumer,” set out to answer the question: How do voters feel about ACP? In a poll commissioned by ACP, a majority of voters in all three states support the project–by an overwhelming majority. ACP hired Hickman Analytics Inc., a “Democratic-leaning,” Maryland-based firm to do the polling. Harrison Hickman, founder of the firm, said, “By any measure, whether it’s a policy matter or a voting matter, the pipeline has widespread support.” That’s something you won’t read in most news outlets. Here’s the results of the poll… 
Last year Canadian companies went on a midstream (pipeline) buying spree, snapping up major U.S. companies. In March 2016, MDN reported that Canadian midstream giant TransCanada, lusting for a bigger piece of the Marcellus/Utica pipeline pie, decided to buy Columbia Pipeline Group for $10 billion (see 
Keane Group is a Texas-based oilfield services company that provides fracking, wireline and top-hole air drilling services to oil and gas companies in the Marcellus/Utica as well as several other major basins. In January 2016, Keane announced they were buying out Canadian-based Trican Well Service for $247 million (see 
You know how money-grubbing, cheap, careless and in general no-good those Big Oil companies are, right? They only care about themselves. They seek to rape and pillage Mom Earth, keeping piles of gold in their coffers, killing humankind in the process. That’s the picture painted by anti-fossil fuel nuts. Here’s the real picture: In 2016, between employees and the corporation, Exxon Mobil donated more than $50 million to colleges and universities across the United States. That is a staggering number. Many of those colleges and universities were located in the Appalachian basin (Marcellus/Utica), including $2.7 million in PA, $800K in OH, $1.4 million in VA, $3.2 million in NY and $1.2 million in NJ. Just the opposite of the negative picture painted by the enemies of fossil fuels… 
More trouble for Energy Transfer and the Rover Pipeline project as the company is working against a tight deadline to get the $3.7 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that traverses Ohio up and running this year. It appears as if the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) is hellbent on picking a fight with the project. Perhaps some of OEPA’s criticisms are justified–perhaps some are not. We’ll give you the “lay of the land” (pun intended) as we see it. Early on Rover appeared to rush too much, resulting in numerous drilling mud spills in locations where Rover was drilling underground to avoid creeks and rivers and other structures. One of those spills dumped 2 million gallons of drilling mud (i.e. bentonite) in a wetland next to the Tuscarawas River (see 
Last year MDN was the first to share the news that the California-based US Methanol is building at least two, rumored up to five, methanol plants in the Mountain State (see 
In December 2015 MDN told you about EQT’s application to drill a single shale well in Jefferson Hills (Allegheny County), PA (see 
Here’s one that really gets us hot and bothered. MDN is written from Upstate New York (near Binghamton). We covered, extensively, the battle to allow fracking (and now, natural gas pipelines) in our beloved home state. We won’t plow up old ground again except to say that one of the battles fought, and lost, was over whether or not local municipalities can ban fracking for everyone. Two backwater towns in New York–Dryden (Tompkins County) and Middlefield (Otsego County) passed town bans that were challenged in court. The case eventually went to NY’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. We (pro-drillers) lost. Local towns now have the right to outright ban fracking–if and when it ever becomes legal to frack in New York. Some call it the “home rule” law. This was all done at the prompting and urging of a very corrupt governor–Andrew Cuomo. The judges on NY’s high court are appointed by the governor. It’s the worst kind of incest and miscarriage of justice. So along comes a wind power project that a corporation wants to build in Western NY. Some of the locals don’t want it. If they convince their towns to pass a ban on wind projects for the town, guess what? In that case NY state law will overrule the town and allow the wind project to get built anyway. How, on God’s green earth, is that in any sense fair? Here’s what we hope: We hope at least one of the towns involved passes a ban and it goes to court and they throw the high court’s decision on frack bans right back in their face. It’s time to expose the energy double standard in NY…
U.S. Bancorp (aka U.S. Bank) is the fifth largest bank in the United States. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. Bancorp has over 3,000 branches, mostly in the Midwest. The bank recently released an “Environmental Responsibility Policy” (full copy below). In it, the bank says this with respect to financing pipeline projects: “The company does not provide project financing for the construction of oil or natural gas pipelines. Relationships with clients in the oil and gas pipeline industries are subject to the Bank’s enhanced due diligence processes that are outlined further below.” This is TOTALLY unacceptable. The Energy Equipment & Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA) sent an open letter (copy below) to all officers, directors and shareholders calling on the institution to reverse its discriminatory anti-pipeline policy. MDN is a little more impolitic. We’re calling for anyone with a U.S. Bancorp checking, savings, commercial, or any kind of account, to close it. It’s time businesses like U.S. Bancorp are made to pay for this kind of wrongheaded activism…