Dems & GOP Desperate for Permitting Reform at PA Energy Summit
When the public teat is full of taxpayer money, ready to dispense, and big business can’t get its mouth around that teat to start sucking, big business begins to whine and moan. That about sums up what happened at the Pennsylvania Energy Summit held yesterday in Pittsburgh. The Bidenistas went on a drunken spending spree over the past two years, unleashing what amounts to trillions of dollars to be made available for so-called renewable energy projects via the poorly crafted Infrastructure bill and the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act. Now, big business wants to start feeding on that money, but it can’t because it takes too long to get projects permitted. Too bad, so sad.
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Ever hear of the term MAD–or 
Yesterday, the management of NextEra Energy announced it has officially lost its collective mind. The company is selling its two natural gas pipeline investments–one in Texas and the other right here in the heart of the Marcellus Shale–because it wants to concentrate 100% on unreliable (and government-funded) “renewable” energy projects instead. You may recall that NextEra bought Meade Pipeline Co LLC for $1.37 billion in 2019 (see 
On Friday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry announced her office has filed criminal charges against two men for falsifying paperwork and risking catastrophe while working on a natural gas pipeline project in western PA. The AG’s Environmental Crime Section and the US Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General investigated a case of suspected fraud in falsifying records for portions of a MarkWest Liberty Pipeline to transport NGLs.
Williams, one of the largest pipeline companies in the world, issued its first quarter update yesterday. The company reported 1Q23 net income increased by $547 million to $926 million, up from $379 million in 1Q22 due to unrealized gains (and losses) on commodity derivatives, the benefit of higher service revenues driven by contributions from recent acquisitions, increased volumes at Ohio Valley Midstream, as well as higher commodity marketing margins. CEO and President Alan Armstrong said, “We remain squarely focused on our natural gas-focused strategy.” The Marcellus/Utica plays a big part in the company’s gas-focused strategy.
For the third time, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (liberal Democrat from West Virginia) has introduced a permitting reform bill to save the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from the clutches of colluding leftists who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Manchin is rebranding this bill (essentially the same one he introduced last year that bombed out) as the “Building American Energy Security Act of 2023” (full copy below). He introduced the bill in the U.S. Senate yesterday.
During yesterday’s quarterly phone call with analysts to discuss the 1Q23 performance of Equitrans Midstream, a big topic of conversation was the 94% completed (but stalled) Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Equitrans (builder of MVP) CEO Thomas Karam said, “The path to an MVP completion during 2023 is narrower but based on the diligent and comprehensive work being done by the staff at various state and federal agencies and the expected overall permitting timeline, we believe the possibility of commencing forward construction this summer still exists.” He also said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circuit) and their prospective rejection of new permits for the project is not “that dire of a position.” We 100% disagree.
In late 2015, MPLX (i.e. Marathon Petroleum) bought out and merged in the Utica Shale’s premier midstream company, MarkWest Energy, for $15 billion (see 
Earlier today Equitrans Midstream, the former EQT Midstream (now a standalone company), issued its first quarter 2023 update. The update is actually a series of updates about the company’s vitally important (to the Marcellus/Utica) pipeline and midstream projects. In the update, we learn more about the company’s Rager Mountain Natural Gas Storage Field accident; we learn the latest about the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, essentially on hold; and we learn about the Ohio Valley Connector Expansion Project (OCVX), expected to be in-service the first half of 2024.
Disappointing news has been a constant this week–and it’s only Tuesday! Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court proved that sometimes it’s not so supreme. The high court breathed new life into a long-running lawsuit funded by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners who are arguing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia.
Last August, Columbia Gas Transmission (a subsidiary of TC Energy) filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the Virginia Reliability Project (VRP), which includes two new compressor units and the replacement of 49 miles of existing pipeline (see 
Yesterday the Bidenistas at the Dept. of (In)Justice (DOJ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a “settlement” (i.e. bullying) with three pipeline companies–Williams, MPLX, and Kerr-McGee Gathering. The settlement requires the three to pay a combined $9.25 million in civil penalties and make improvements at 25 gas processing plants and 91 compressor stations in 12 states, including Ohio and West Virginia, worth another $16 million. The two federal agencies claimed the pipeline companies were violating federal and state clean air laws related to leak detection and repair (LDAR) requirements for natural gas processing plants at various facilities they own and operate across the country.