Federal EPA Writes a PennEast Pipeline Love Letter to FERC
Once upon a time, during the Obama reign of terror, the out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as headed by the odious Gina McCarthy, blasted the PennEast Pipeline project (see Obama EPA, National Park Service Try to Rain on PennEast Parade). The Obama/McCarthy EPA made an outrageous claim: That building PennEast “may” end up causing arsenic in groundwater supplies. Totally bogus. And pathetic. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) didn’t fall for EPA’s arsenic and old lace. They approved the project in April (see FERC Issues Favorable Final EIS for PennEast Pipeline Project). Along with the change in the presidency has come some clear-headed thinking in Washington, DC–including at the EPA. Make no mistake–the EPA is still overly populated with Obamadroids that need to be canned. However, there’s enough of a change at the EPA that the agency has just sent what we would call a love letter to FERC, about PennEast. In it, the EPA says, “FERC’s efforts to consider and actively engage EPA to discuss comments, which resulted in improved or modified documentation provided in the [Final] EIS and improved safeguards for protection of human health and the environment.” And because of that, “many of our concerns and objections [to PennEast] have been or will be addressed.” In other words, everybody has now kissed and made up. EPA is feelin’ good about PennEast. And so are we…
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Very good news for Spectra Energy’s Atlantic Bridge project in (of all places) New York State. In January the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave its final stamp of approval for Atlantic Bridge (see 
Generally speaking, the western side of Ohio is seeing a lot of activity with new solar and wind installations. And the eastern side of the state is seeing a lot of activity with shale drilling and natural gas pipelines. But there is one county, Seneca County (slightly left of center, in the northern part of the state) where both renewable projects like solar and wind, and fossil fuel projects like pipelines, are both active. And that means landowners in Seneca County are being bombarded with offers from solar, wind, pipelines and electric lines. Some sage advice from the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation for landowners: hire a lawyer before you sign anything… 
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), headquartered in Western New York State, is making noises (threats) that Gov. Andrew Cuomo should be very concerned about. NFG covers the full span of the oil and gas business–from upstream (with its wholly-owned drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources), to the midstream (with wholly-owned subsidiary Empire Pipeline) to downstream (NFG’s natural gas utility service to 740,000 customers in NY and PA). It’s a big company that generates a lot of jobs and revenue for New York State. Yet NY is metaphorically crapping all over NFG–and the company is signaling its willingness to retaliate by leaving. No, not move the company HQ, or sell off its gigantic utility business. Nothing of that sort (yet, anyway). But NFG CEO Ronald Tanski said on an earnings call last Friday that NFG is “getting lousy regulatory treatment in New York State” and that “Given this type of regulatory treatment in the state, we have to take a serious look at our ability to achieve any reasonable growth in New York.” Translation: We’ll stop launching new projects that invest billions in the Empire State, and instead invest that money and the jobs it creates in PA and other states. The “lousy treatment” NFG is getting is related to NY’s corrupt Dept. of Environmental Conservation decision to deny it permits to build the Northern Access Pipeline (see 
Last week TransCanada announced they are “selling” their interest in the Iroquois Gas Transmission pipeline and a second pipeline, Portland Natural Gas Transmission System (PNGTS), to a subsidiary of TransCanada for $765 million. Every now and again big energy companies transfer some of their assets to different subsidiary companies, on paper. We say “on paper” because nothing really changes with the management of the assets–in this case two pipelines. However, money does change hands because usually there are different sets of investors for the different subsidiaries. So TransCanada “sold” themselves (different set of investors) these two pipeline systems. Iroquois is majority owned by TransCanada–in two pieces. After the drop down sale, TC PipeLines will own both pieces, representing 61.1% of the Iroquois system. Iroquois is a 416-mile interstate natural gas pipeline extending from the U.S.-Canadian border at Waddington, NY, through New York State and western Connecticut to its terminus in Commack, NY, and from Huntington to the Bronx, NY. The second pipeline part of the transfer deal is PNGTS–an interstate natural gas pipeline company providing natural gas transportation service for gas utilities, paper mills, and electric generation plants throughout New England. Here’s info about the deal, and an overview for each pipeline system… 
Last week Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the main operating division of Energy Transfer Equity (ETE), released its first quarter 2017 financial and operating update. ETP is the company that built the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was finally completed after Obama was ejected from office–and is right now building the Rover Pipeline. Another division of ETE was, until last month, Sunoco Logistics Partners. In April Sunoco LP was merged into ETP (see 
Elise Gerhart has been up a tree before. You may recall our story about Elise, daughter of a Huntingdon County, PA landowner, radicalized by Big Green groups (as evidenced by her association with well known protesters previously arrested), who took to a tree on her mom’s property in order to illegally stop crews working on tree clearing for the Mariner East 2 pipeline (see 
This one has us spitting nails. We have reported, for months, about the activities of so-called protesters against Williams’ $3 billion Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. In particular, there is a group in Lancaster County, PA opposing the pipeline creatively called Lancaster Against Pipelines (LAP). Some of their members previously attended and participated in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock, ND–protests that turned violent and destroyed millions of dollars in equipment (see 
Yesterday midstream and utility giant Dominion issued its first quarter 2017 update. Along with the update Dominion held an earnings call. On that call we learned new information about both the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project, Dominion’s Cove Point LNG export project, and a plethora of other projects, including natgas-fired power plants and more pipelines in the works. Dominion CEO Tom Farrell shared the exciting news that Cove Point is now 89% complete and will be “in service” later this year. As for Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Dominion has now purchased 80% of the materials they will need to build it. Farrell said the pipeline will be online in the second half of 2019. Another six pipeline projects are underway (at a cost of $700 million)–with five of the six due to be done THIS YEAR. Dominion is a happening company. Below are extracts from the earnings call, the 1Q17 update (with financials), and the newest PowerPoint slide deck used during the earnings call…
The U.S. The House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on Wednesday to hear testimony on a proposed plan to grant the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) more authority to speed up the pipeline approval process. Up for discuss is an amendment to the Natural Gas Act to grant FERC more authority in coordinating what is, admittedly, a complex review process. A more powerful FERC would, for example, likely be able to override states like New York that refuse to grant water crossing permits (permits that are issued under a federal law!). Don Santa, executive director of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, was one of the people testifying before the assembled Congressmen. He said things have gotten pretty bad over the past two years–yes with FERC, but also with other federal and state agencies. Here’s some of what was said at the hearing…
The City of Green, Ohio, located in Summit County (south of Akron, north of Canton) seems to have no problems with spending boatloads of taxpayer money on anti-pipeline efforts. A few weeks ago Green City Council voted to give $10,000 to the anti-pipeline CORN–Coalition to Reroute Nexus. We call the group CORNballs and have written extensively about their supposed desire to just see the NEXUS pipeline routed around them, pretending to be NIMBYs (
In June 2014, MDN told you about the Dominion New Market Project–a project that will build two new compressor plants and upgrade one other compressor station in upstate New York–to help flow more abundant, cheap and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from Pennsylvania (and beyond) into the northeast (see 
Westinghouse Electric tried “an ambitious new approach to building nuclear power plants” by building sections of the plants in one location before sending them to the construction site for assembly. They tried the process with two nuke plants–one in Georgia and the other in South Carolina. The process they “innovated” failed and took the company down–into bankruptcy. What does that have to do with the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline project? Westinghouse Electric is headquartered just outside of Pittsburgh and owns a fair amount of land. Mariner East 2 intends to cross a portion of that land. Sunoco Logistics Partners, builder of ME2, attempted to negotiate a payment for an easement to cross Westinghouse’s land–but Westinghouse wanted more than ME2 offered. So ME2 filed paperwork to use eminent domain and “condemn” the Westinghouse property. In other words, let a judge decide how much is fair. Westinghouse joined the chorus that “ME2 isn’t really a public utility”–sounding no different than the Sierra Club and others who oppose the project. That strategy went nowhere, so Westinghouse eventually came back to the bargaining table and this time, worked out a deal–to sell some of their land to ME2. Now Westinghouse is asking the bankruptcy judge in charge of their case to approve the land sale, ahead of the judge’s decision on other matters to do with the bankruptcy. Here’s an account of the high stakes of “chicken” between Westinghouse and ME2…
More than 300 people attended the West Virginia Manufacturers Association’s Marcellus and Manufacturing Development Conference in Morgantown yesterday. Among the topics discussed–the need for faster approvals of pipelines, and the positive economic of shale on the Mountain State. Among the speakers was new State Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher–who spent most of his career in the private sector. According to Thrasher, “shale gas is the future of economic opportunity in West Virginia.” Thrasher said the industry with the biggest potential for growth in WV is shale energy–and it’s “only begun to emerge.” He urged audience members to get involved and make their voices heard–at the local, state and federal level. We think it’s a fair statement to say that Thrasher rallied the troops and is leading the charge to see more shale energy developed in WV… 
Looks like Middletown Township, in Delaware County, PA (Philadelphia suburb), has finally faced reality that the Mariner East 2 Pipeline is coming through town. To be fair, town council came to that conclusion last September when they voted to grant easements to Sunoco Logistics Partners to build Mariner East 2 across four parcels of public land (see