Fearing He Won’t Get Reappointed, FERC’s Glick Approves Gas Pipes
As near as we can tell, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick has not voted in favor an ANY brand new natural gas pipeline project in the past five years–until now. Glick, whose five-year term has ended at the agency, and who wants another cushy five-year appointment (he’s out on Dec. 31 if he doesn’t get a Senate vote), is falling all over himself to approve new gas pipelines. Before, he voted against every darned project citing man-made global warming concerns. Now he can’t approve gas-related projects fast enough. What a putz.
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We pointed out last week that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the agency charged with overseeing the safety of some 3.3 million miles of pipelines across the country, is currently leaderless (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has assessed a $670,000 fine plus extra “cost recovery” charges of nearly $30,000 against the Shell Pipeline Company for work done between 2019 and 2021 on Shell’s Falcon ethane pipeline project. The DEP says that a series of inspections showed “failure to comply” with this paperwork requirement and that paperwork requirement. There were a few instances of erosion into “waters of the commonwealth.” But in the end, the DEP acknowledges, “no visual aquatic impacts were observed.” No muddy water. No dead fishies. No dead salamanders. No dead nothing. In other words, the DEP fined Shell for nothing–no lasting impacts on the environment from the work done to construct the Falcon pipeline.
In March 2019, MDN told you about a new Williams plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d (originally 1 billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see 
Capital from private investors and banks is leaving (or rather, not entering) the Marcellus/Utica region and is, instead, heading to the Gulf Coast–in particular, capital investment is heading to the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana and East Texas. That was the observation of several speakers at the recent Hart Energy America’s Natural Gas conference. According to Kevin Little, senior vice president for natural gas at Macquarie Energy, the lack of pipelines and infrastructure in the M-U is not just keeping the gas in the region, the lack of pipelines is keeping investment (for more drilling) out. Here is the real tragedy: “U.S. LNG export capacity is primed to ramp up and the largest, most economic natural gas basin [the M-U] is left out of the action, unable to increase production to meet the higher demand.”
Last year the Bidenistas initiated a massive power grab to transfer the right of individual states to regulate local natural gas gathering pipelines to the federal government’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (see 
EQT CEO Toby Rice has been and is on a mission to spread the gospel of LNG (see 
In a March 3rd Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) asked Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick this question: “Has anyone higher up in the [Biden] administration ever spoken to you in regards to somehow slow-walking or otherwise impeding or otherwise accentuating policy that would have the effect of impeding the development of natural gas pipelines?” Chairman Glick responded with an unambiguous “no.” Yet FERC refused to release records of communications and meetings with the White House to back up Glick’s statement. The Institute for Energy Research (IER) promptly filed a lawsuit (and nine others since) to probe the extent of the involvement of the Biden White House in reshaping FERC’s policies. FERC continues to stonewall the IER’s requests. What is FERC, and The White House, hiding?
There’s little doubt that Vladimir Putin ordered the bombing of his own undersea natural gas pipelines, the Nord Stream pipelines, for some sort of political purpose. Crazy? Sure. But also calculated. In a brilliant column on the Forbes website, author Dan Markind, a Philadelphia-based attorney, compares Putin’s actions in sabotaging his own pipelines to the politicians in New York and New England who are sabotaging pipelines to their respective regions.
So what happens now that Joe Manchin’s plan to get his fellow Democrats to vote for a bill to finish up the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a “permitting reform” bill, is dead (see 
The Millennium Pipeline, which stretches 263 miles from Corning, NY, to just outside New York City, delivers Pennsylvania Marcellus and Utica gas to utility and power plant markets across New York State and into New England. Several companies jointly own the pipeline, which operates under its own corporate structure. Among those with an ownership interest are TC Energy (formerly TransCanada), utility giant National Grid, and pipeline company DT Midstream. Last week DT Midstream announced it would double its ownership stake in the Millennium from 26.25% to 52.50%. DT will pay $552 million to become the majority owner of the Millennium Pipeline.
It doesn’t take much these days to buy yourself a “study” that shows what you want it to show. So-called scientists are for hire all over the place. Take, for example, “researchers” at Stanford University and the University of Arizona. All that the far-left Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) had to do was put some money into the pockets of a couple of “researchers” from those schools, and voila! A new “peer-reviewed” study was published yesterday that claims natural gas gathering pipelines (in the Permian Basin) leak like sieves. Oh yeah. It’s FAR worse than anyone had ever thought. All that methane is leaking and toasting Mom Earth, and the villain is gathering pipelines. What a load of…
Here’s a challenge to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) pipeline certificate we don’t fully comprehend. In 2018 the Panda Hummel Marcellus-fired power plant in Snyder County, PA roared to life (see 