TransCanada and Columbia Pipeline Tie the Knot Today
In March MDN reported that Canadian midstream giant TransCanada wants a bigger piece of the Marcellus/Utica pipeline pie and decided to buy Columbia Pipeline Group for $10 billion (see TransCanada Makes Play to Buy Columbia Pipeline for $10B). The deal is now done. As of today, Columbia Pipeline Group’s stock is officially de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange and trades no more. Columbia is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian midstream giant TransCanada…
Read More “TransCanada and Columbia Pipeline Tie the Knot Today”

As MDN reported two days ago, the Maryland Dept. of the Environment (MDE) held a public hearing in Baltimore to elicit feedback on changes to the state’s proposed fracking regulations–already the tightest, harshest such regulations in the country (see
Once again a group of so-called religious leaders, including a serial criminal, were arrested in Boston blocking work on a very short, 5-mile pipeline (West Roxbury Lateral) that will bring cheap, abundant, clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas to local residents in the Boston area. Some 26 were arrested, some of the same nutters were arrested in May (see
Normally polsters, when releasing a high level summary of a poll’s results, also release the “crosstabs”–the details of the poll. But apparently not if the poll is good news for the fracking industry. Rasmussen recently conducted a poll in a series of polls they’ve been conduction (for years) to gage the nation’s attitude about fracking. The poll finds 49% of American’s support fracking, while 34% oppose it. Quick fact: Fracking of conventional or vertical-only wells has been going on for more than 40 years in this country. The high level results were reported by Rasmussen, but no crosstabs which might tell us fracking is supported by a majority of Democrats. That kind of truth-telling is lethal to the politicians running the party. Here’s the (precious little) sum total of what Rasmussen did share about the latest fracking poll…
A few days ago MDN told you about the fruitless efforts by anti-drilling zealots in Youngstown, OH in delivering a petition for a sixth vote on a frack ban measure for the November ballot (see 
MDN previously chronicled an insidious effort being spearheaded by the odious New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in an attempt to criminalize free speech by accusing Exxon Mobil of “knowing” man-made global warming is “true” but suppressing that knowledge (see 
Finally Williams has admitted, in writing, that the attempted buyout/merger by Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) is, as we said yesterday, dead (see 
Can a single petrochemical facility, like Shell’s proposed ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, “rebirth” all of Pennsylvania’s moribund manufacturing base? That would be a resounding “Yes!” according to Marcellus Shale Coalition president Dave Spigelmyer and Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association president Dave Taylor. Writing a column in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the two Daves make the case for just how big a hairy deal the coming Shell cracker in PA really is…
Last December MDN ripped the mask off a group of extremely partisan, virulently anti-drilling Democrats who call themselves the innocent-sounding Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative (see
Last weekend the United States Conference of Mayors held their annual conference in Indianapolis, IN. Following the meeting, a small group of 30 mayors–a few from larger cities like Pittsburgh and Charlotte, but most from small cities–signed a letter urging state and federal officials to allow local municipalities (like theirs) to ban fracking. It’s all couched in terms of “home rule” language, but the desire is to allow local governments to deny their citizens their Constitutional property rights. Near as we can tell, all 30 of the mayors signing the letter are liberal Democrats. The press release and letter were issued by the virulently anti-drilling Environment America, a Big Green group…
As we previously reported, last Friday a Delaware court ruled that Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) has the right to terminate its merger agreement with Williams (see 