THE Delaware Riverkeeper Plans to Pack DRBC Hearing to Oppose PennEast
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), charged with overseeing potential impacts on the Delaware River and the various tributaries that feed it, has stepped outside of its legal bounds with plans to review the PennEast Pipeline, part of which will run through the Delaware River Basin area. In 2014 the DRBC tried to tell PennEast and its sponsors that the pipeline will need their approval before it can be built (see DRBC Tells PennEast They Need DRBC (Not Just FERC) Approval). There’s just one teeny tiny problem with the DRBC’s plan. It’s called the U.S. Constitution. PennEast is permitted solely by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), not any other agency including the quasi-governmental DRBC. PennEast told DRBC as much (see PennEast Tells DRBC Not So Fast, FERC has Final Say on Pipeline). But silly little things like laws don’t stop power-mad liberals like those at the DRBC. FERC, in a bid to be gracious to the libs at DRBC, agreed to hold one joint hearing on the PennEast with the DRBC (see Anti Drillers Demand DRBC Hold 7 Meetings on PennEast Pipeline). But then the DRBC has decided it will take its marbles and go home–telling FERC to blank-off, that DRBC will hold their own hearings (plural) on the PennEast (see DRBC’s Lawless Action to Review PennEast Pipeline Apart from FERC). The time has come. On March 15 the DRBC will proceed with its lawless action in holding a hearing, and DRBC friend and confidant, Maya van Rossum (THE Delaware Riverkeeper) has issued an email to her legion of mind-numbed robots to hound the DRBC about speaking slots at the hearing, so they can create the illusion that most folks are against the project. She’s also planning to pack the meeting room with hippies and ne’er–do–wells in “stop penneast” t-shirts, holding up signs…
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Companies in the oil and gas space, in particular midstream (pipeline) companies, have complicated ownership structures on paper. There are usually a number of subsidiary companies. Sometimes these companies have a “mother ship” which is owned by stockholders, and a subsidiary that is a master limited partnership (MLP), which is a different kind of corporate structure. MLPs don’t have shares of stock but instead issue units (about the same thing as shares of stock). MLPs give the unitholders certain tax advantages not offered to stockholders. Yes, its complicated. The important thing to know is that often these large pipeline companies have layers within layers. Which is the setup for this story. TransCanada, which purchased Columbia Pipeline Group last year for $10 billion (see 
On Friday, Feb. 3, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave a final approval for Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline project–a $3.7 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada (see 
New York State is a hopeless, corrupt mess. MDN previously reported on a $900 million natural gas-fired electric generating plant coming to Orange County, NY (see 
You may recall that in April 2016, New York’s anti-drilling governor, Andrew Cuomo, decided he would cave to pressure from radical environmentalists once again and block the building of the federally-approved Constitution Pipeline (see 
In December, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) threw a little cold water on two important pipeline upgrades to carry more Marcellus/Utica gas to southern markets. A final environmental impact statement (EIS) was due from FERC for both the Mountaineer XPress and Gulf XPress projects no later than April 28, 2017. FERC said that the deadline would slip by three months due to reroutes and additional environment information requested (see 
Earlier this month Rover Pipeline, a $3.7 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada, received its final authorization from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday (see 
In January 2014 MDN brought you the story that due to incessant nagging from the NJ Sierra Club and the NJ League of [Liberal Democrat] Women Voters the Pinelands Commission, which oversees a stand of scrub pines in South Jersey, nixed a plan for a new natural gas pipeline to bring cheap, clean, abundant Marcellus Shale natural gas to South Jersey for use by residents and to feed an electric plant a local utility wants to convert from burning coal to natgas (see 
An interesting article in the Harrisburg Patriot-News looks (favorably) at a trouble-making anti from Lancaster County, PA who participated in the illegal activities at Standing Rock, ND. He earnestly hopes he can attract that kind of disruption and mayhem to peaceful Amish Country in an attempt to stop the Transco Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project from getting built. But just like Standing Rock, this effort will fail. What we found interesting is that this is an open admission of something we’ve been reporting (warning about) for months–that some of the miscreants from North Dakota are targeting the Marcellus/Utica for their next round of anarchy. There’s nothing “peaceful” about what these people do…
Anti-drilling zealots are sometimes maddening, sometimes funny, and often just plain bizarre. As they are with their latest publicity attack (aided and abetted by PBS reporters) by claiming a couple of townships along the pipeline’s proposed route have ordinances in place that would potentially stop the pipeline in those locations “if only” those lazy, corrupt townships would just enforce the ordinances. That’s the upshot of the argument. One of the towns, Thornbury (Delaware County, a Philly suburb) has a requirement that the subdivision where the pipeline will run must maintain at least 40% of the land in the subdivision as “open space.” The antis claim the pipeline will use enough acreage to reduce the “open space” to below 40%. Ah, Mr. & Ms. Anti, did you know that the pipeline will run underground? And that pipelines lead to MORE permanent open spaces? Nice green fairways that are well-maintained? Lawyers from the usual radical suspects are getting ready to file lawsuits for “force” the townships to pay money defending against this latest inanity…
As we reported earlier this week, Sunoco Logistics Partners has begun active construction activities related to building the twin Mariner East 2 pipelines (see 
Each year Engineering News-Record (ENR) magazine publishes a list of its Top 25 construction projects that began to be built during the previous 12 months. ENR has just released the list for new starts in 2016, and as we looked over the list, we couldn’t help but notice that of the top 25–each project of which had to be worth at least $140 million to get on the list–many of the projects are related to Marcellus/Utica Shale and would not exist without abundant, cheap shale gas. Here is the list of the Top 25 projects begun last year in the states of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia…
You may recall that TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal last year to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada when/if the NEXUS and Rover pipelines get built (see 
There’s always a few holdouts, no matter how hard you try to be reasonable. We’re talking about landowners who refuse to negotiate in good faith with pipeline companies. Earlier this month amidst a flurry of activity, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) handed Williams a final final final approval for its Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project–a $3 billion, 198-mile pipeline running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County (see 
We’ve known for the past couple of years that Sunoco Logistics Partners, owner and builder of the Mariner pipeline projects, wanted to build not one, but two Mariner East 2 pipelines–ME2 and ME2X. We wrote about their hope to build two pipelines back in June 2015 (see