Trump Selects FERC Attorney James Danly as New Commissioner
On Monday The White House announced President Trump intends to nominate (which we take to mean he will nominate) attorney James Danly as the third Republican Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Danly is currently FERC’s General Counsel (i.e. main attorney). Danly knows the agency, its work, and its personalities. Who better to appoint? Of course Democrats are already griping and moaning that President Trump should also name a Democrat to the final open seat at the Commission. The Dems argue the two currently open FERC Commissioner seats should be considered together, or not at all. Whatever.
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Two very important (perhaps we should say critically important) cases now sit before the U.S. Supreme Court–cases that have a direct bearing on the Marcellus/Utica region. Both cases deal with pipelines. The first case we’ve written about before: Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline case to overturn a nutty decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that judicially creates a new law that pipelines can’t cross under the Appalachian Trail without (no kidding) an Act of Congress. The other case involves the Hoopa Valley Indian Tribe in California–a case that has profound implications for the Constitution Pipeline from Pennsylvania into New York.
Last December Williams announced its Leidy South Project, a new expansion of the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania (see 
Sunoco Logistics Partners, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer, is still on the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environment Protection’s (DEP) naughty list. In February, PA Gov. Tom Wolf ordered the DEP to suspend all reviews of clean water permit applications and other pending approvals for ALL of ET/Sunoco’s pipeline projects in the state–including the Mariner East and Revolution pipeline projects. The ban on approving reviews has not yet been lifted and means that in 33 locations across the state (most of them in the Philadelphia area) Sunoco can’t complete underground horizontal direction drilling (HDD) work for its Mariner East pipeline projects.
Not everyone who lives in the Greater New York City area is falling for the bogus line by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that he’s not to blame for a natural gas shortage plaguing the region. As we’ve chronicled, endlessly, Cuomo ordered his Dept. of Environment Conservation to reject the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project (see 
The radical environmental left continues a campaign to deny construction of new pipelines–ANY new oil and gas pipelines–as their way of strangling the use of fossil fuels. Here’s the latest example: Environmentalist wackos at the Bernheim Arboretum (about 25 miles from Louisville, Kentucky) have refused to grant an easement for 4,000 feet of land they bought *after* the Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) already had a state-approved plan to build a new pipeline over that land as part of tiny 12-inch, 12-mile pipeline. The Arboretum’s refusal, along with a few other property owners, means 62 homes and businesses have been denied the right to connect to LG&E’s natgas local utility system.
Detractors of the Trump Administration pretend the only thing the Administration does is “roll back” safety and environmental regulations, lowering protections for citizens, making it more dangerous to live and work anywhere in our great country. In fact the Trump Administration has done an excellent job in correcting some of the wild over-regulation from the Obama Administration. But it’s grossly inaccurate to say the current Administration has only repealed regulations. Case in point: The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has just transmitted three significant new final rules (regulations) to the Federal Register that will strengthen the safety of more than 500,000 miles of onshore gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipelines throughout the U.S.
Chester County, PA District Attorney Thomas P. Hogan famously announced to the world last December he would investigate Sunoco Logisitcs and their Mariner East (ME) pipeline projects for “crimes” (see 
The town of East Goshen, in Chester County, PA (near Philadelphia) has a noise ordinance in place from 10 pm to 7 am. Sunoco Logisitics, working on installing a section of the Mariner East 2 pipeline through the township, requested an exemption to allow them to work all night long. Their argument is that once you start pulling pipe through the hole you’ve just drilled, you can’t just stop. Last week the town supervisors voted against granting the exception. Shhh, quiet after 10.
On August 1, Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Pipeline Company (TETCO) pipeline exploded in Lincoln County, Kentucky–killing one and sending six to the hospital (see 
New York Gov. Andrew “Don Corleone” Cuomo continues his sleazy vendetta against National Grid, the New York City/Long Island gas utility company that is refusing to connect *new* customers to their natural gas system because Cuomo has denied new sources of natural gas for that system. So far NY media is licking Cuomo’s boots on this issue, publishing sob stories that blame National Grid for the hardships now faced in the region. But residents in NYC and Long Island are not fooled. They see what’s really happening.
Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (or PIPE) grants cover part of the cost of building new natgas pipelines to connect homes and businesses in rural parts of the state to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the more-than-a-dozen (so far) PIPE grant projects in the past (
