It’s War: ETE vs. Obama’s Army Corps of (Politicized) Engineers
As we pointed out last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)–which is supposed to be an organization of, well, engineers–has gone hard-left political, no doubt under the direction of Lord Obama (see Army Corps of Engineers Turns Political in Dakota Access Fight). The USACE has taken to leveraging a sycophantic media to boost its message that Energy Transfer Equity, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline, should stop building the pipeline (which is already 90% built) because it might hurt the feelings of paid mobsters who are protesting it. Our concern with the project is that the same mobsters protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline have promised to come to the Marcellus/Utica next (see Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters Turn Violent; Coming Here Next?). In addition to using the media to rally its cause, the USACE has just announced it will not, for now, grant a permit to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. ETE is firing back with a caustic press release calling out the USACE as unjust lawbreakers. Yeah, it’s open war now–and Trump can’t assume office fast enough to put an end to the horse manure being pedaled by the Army Corps of Politicized Engineers…
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The big Texas law firm Bracewell, which until earlier this year was Bracewell & Giuliani (Rudy left in January), has put together an helpful analysis of what changes we can expect under a President Trump Administration. Although they tackle a number of areas, we were interested to read their predictions for what will be happening with energy and the environment under President Trump. What’s in store for pipelines? Obama’s Clean Power Plan? EPA’s onerous regulations? The Bracewell legal beagles haul out their crystal ball and give us a glimpse…
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved a 7.8 mile off-shoot pipeline from the mighty Millennium Pipeline in Orange County, NY that will feed a new natgas-fired electric plant being built in Wawayanda. The pipeline will supply 130 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas to feed the new power plant. This is the Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) $900 million plant being opposed by rich Hollywood actor James Cromwell, who lives near the plant site (see 
It was tough deciding on a headline for this post about Sunoco Logistics Partners third quarter 2016 update. In the end we opted to highlight the news that Mariner East 2–a $2.5 billion, 350-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through the state of Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia, carting ethane, butane and propane to the facility from both the Utica and Marcellus region–will be delayed nine months from the original plan due to permit delays. Which is frustrating and disappointing. However, other important news was shared during yesterday’s update. On the earnings call Sunoco LP’s top brass said even though the prices Marcellus and Utica drillers get for their NGLs (natural gas liquids) is lower in the northeast than if they can cart it to the Gulf Coast, when you factor in transportation costs to get product to the Gulf, drillers end up making MORE money by selling their NGLs in the northeast via Sunoco’s Marcus Hook facility–$0.10 to $0.20 per barrel more. At least, that’s the claim made by Sunoco LP’s CEO Michael Hennigan…
As MDN previously reported, the dupes in Waterville, OH voted to pass a resolution on Tuesday that would block the construction of the NEXUS Pipeline, planned to go through city property (see 
What’s wrong with this AP story from yesterday: “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it’s trying to defuse tensions between Dakota Access pipeline protesters and law enforcement in southern North Dakota, but the pipeline’s developer isn’t cooperating. The agency released a statement late Wednesday imploring Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners to voluntarily stop work in the area where protests against the $3.8 billion pipeline have resulted in more than 400 arrests. The Corps made a similar plea last week, but was also rebuffed.” What’s wrong? It shows that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is no longer a group of engineers. It has been corrupted by the Obama Administration into a political agency. IT’S NOT THE JOB OF ENGINEERS TO WORRY ABOUT OR PLACATE PAID CRIMINALS “PROTESTING” THE DAKOTA PIPELINE! It is the job of law enforcement to deal with the out-of-control, paid criminals who have gathered in North Dakota. We call on Congress to immediately convene hearings into what in the world is going on inside the USACE–and to force them to shut up when it comes to criminal protesters and stick to engineering. We are VERY concerned that the USACE has compromised their role to the point that they should be removed from any kind of regulatory oversight of the Dakota Access project. To their credit, Energy Transfer Partners (building the pipeline) is not backing down and continues to build the pipeline, even in the face of the Obama politicized USACE…
Back in April the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) told PennEast they would extend the amount of time they are taking until December of this year, rather than this past August, to complete their Environmental Review (see 
In December 2014 the Massachusetts-based utility Berkshire Gas Company announced the amount of natural gas they could purchase from the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) was at full capacity. There’s no additional gas supplies to buy–unless TGP builds their Northeast Energy Direct (NED) expansion project. So Berkshire was forced to tell new customers for natural gas in portions of Franklin County they won’t be able to tap into Berkshire’s line (see 
We’ve written plenty in the past about the PA-based radical anti-drilling group called CELDF–Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (
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 
We’ve written about various pipelines either planned or under construction that will, by joining with other pipelines, haul Marcellus/Utica natural gas (and/or natural gas liquids) all the way to the Gulf Coast. However, the pipes hauling our gas to the Louisiana/Texas borders are one thing. But then the gas has to go the final leg of the journey through Texas (or Louisiana) to the Gulf Coast area where it gets used in petrochemical plants, like crackers or liquefied and exported as LNG. A recent RBN Energy blog post points out the big pipes hauling our gas to Texas and Louisiana are, in many ways, the easier projects to build. Getting it “the last mile of the way” to the Gulf Coast is the more difficult task. It involves reversing pipelines and tieing systems together. Here are six projects in the works to accomplish the mission of getting our gas all the way to the Gulf Coast…
Though often we’re irritated, sometimes we simply marvel at the arrogance of organizations like THE Delaware Riverkeeper. They honestly think they know better than you what kind of energy you should have the right to buy. The people who run the organization (Maya van Rossum, who is THE self-appointed keeper of the Delaware River Basin), irrationally hate all fossil fuels. Even though Maya & company use those fossil fuels every day of their lives. In fact, even though their lives DEPEND on fossil fuels. van Rossum and those who follow her philosophies have settled on a new strategy to try and defeat the use of fossil fuels: stop all new pipeline development. Period. The only way they can do that is to bully and intimidate federal and state agencies–like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). Currently it’s FERC in Maya’s cross-hairs. Maya and THE Delaware Riverkeeper are convening a meeting in Washington, D.C. at the National Press Club (nice place, we’ve eaten there) called “People’s Hearing Investigating FERC.” You read that right. In an attempt to bully and humiliate the hard-working people at FERC, Maya plans to initiate a media circus to pressure FERC into denying, among other projects, the PennEast Pipeline. She’s billing the event as a hearing for those who “have experienced abuse at the hands of FERC and the pipeline industry.” We’re mulling over the possibility of a hearing into those abused by Maya and THE Delaware Riverkeeper. We thing we’d have a pretty strong case…