DRBC Adopts Meaningless Prohibition on Shale Wastewater Disposal
The leftists of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) voted yesterday to approve a final rule prohibiting the discharge of wastewater from high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) to water or land in the Delaware River Basin. The final rule also “clarifies” the circumstances in which water, including wastewater, may be exported from or imported into the Basin. The bottom line from yesterday’s action is that nothing has materially changed. Fracking is currently banned in the Basin under a previous action by the Commission. And nobody discharges frack wastewater on the ground or in streams and rivers anywhere, including in the Delaware River Basin. So what did the vote accomplish for the rabid left? Just more virtue signaling.
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Perhaps like us, you didn’t pay much attention to the Georgia Senate runoff race. Since the Democrats already have cackling Kamala if they need her, the Dems control the Senate by default 50-50 (Kamala used to break ties). So whether Raphael Warnock (the leftist kook Democrat) won, which he did, or Herschel Walker (former football star and Republican) won, it didn’t really matter, right? Wrong. Just that one extra vote, 51-49, has given much more power to the Democrat anti-fossil fuelers that run the Senate (i.e. Chuck Schumer), than we could have imagined. For example: Warnock’s win all but ensures Dick Glick will get reappointed to FERC early next year–a profoundly sad outcome.
Once again, a permitting reform bill floated by U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (from West Virginia) with a provision to complete the 94% completed 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) has flamed out. Manchin made a deal with the devil–his own Democrat Party–to vote for the misnamed and terrible Inflation Reduction Act (a warmed-over version of the Green New Deal) in return for HIS party’s support to pass a so-called permitting reform bill that would, among other things, allow MVP to finish up without court interference (see 
How new laws get proposed and passed is fascinating, isn’t it? Especially when the forces of good (conservatives) use the same tactics as the forces of evil (leftists) against them. The Ohio Senate may vote as soon as today on House Bill (HB) 507, which would expand natural gas drilling in state parks. HB 507 began life as a bill to “revise the number of poultry chicks that may be sold in lots.” The bill ostensibly addresses poultry sales and food safety. Yet somewhere along the way (in the dark of night), the bill was amended with another bill that “forces” state agencies to lease public lands for oil and gas drilling.
Is Vanguard the next BlackRock–i.e, a pariah due to its extreme anti-fossil energy positions? YES. The Attorneys General from 13 states, including Ohio and West Virginia, have filed a protest with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking to block Vanguard, a MAJOR investor (with $7.2 trillion of assets under management, second largest after BlackRock with $10 trillion) from buying stocks in electric utility companies. Why? Because Vanguard, like BlackRock, is trying to force the companies it invests in to abandon the use of fossil energy. If you own Vanguard investments–it’s time to dump them. Let’s hit them where it counts–in the pocketbook.
We’re encouraged to see the American Petroleum Institute (API) finally find its voice and begin to push back against the lunatics in the Biden administration. Recently, the API refused to support the reappointment of FERC Chairman Richard Glick (see 
Yesterday MDN brought you the news that as of Friday, a new regulation controlling volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, and by extension methane emissions, for Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas drillers went into effect (see 
And just like that, the horse everyone thought was dead has come back to life and is leading the race. We’re talking about U.S. Senator Joe Manchin’s so-called permitting reform bill to help save the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). The bill proposed by Manchin would bypass the clown judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals who are blocking it. Manchin got a pledge from his buddy Chuck Schumer to allow a vote on permitting reform in return for Manchin selling out the country by voting to pass the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (see 
Three weeks ago, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak and ended up leaking roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see 
A group of 40 so-called environmental groups (all of them leftist radicals) is doing its best to defeat the 94% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. The groups sent a letter yesterday to officials at the U.S. Dept. of Interior, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), asking those agencies to stretch out the process of granting new permits (for the THIRD time) to complete MVP by as long as possible. The radicals want a 30-day public scoping period, for starters, so they can repeat their lies once again. They’ve already had their say multiple times for many months–they don’t need another 30-day slot now.
Updates for Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas drillers, both environmental protection standards and waste handling standards (two different updates), will now fall to the incoming Josh Shapiro administration. So says the Acting Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Kurt Klapkowski. In other words, Klapkowski and his boss, Gov. Tom Wolf, are punting these important updates to the anti-drilling Shapiro. Washing their hands of it.
Three weeks ago, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak and ended up leaking roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see 
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB), a part of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, voted to adopt a last-minute, rushed-through-in-a-hurry regulation to control volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions (and by extension, methane emissions) from conventional oil and gas operations in the state. The DEP and EQB had more than five years to work on these regulations and chose to fritter away the time. Faced with losing federal highway budget money without a new regulation in place, they rushed it–and botched it. Now the mom-and-pop oil and gas companies across the state will pay the price (and some will go out of business).
In February, MDN brought you news about a “last mile” pipeline from Dominion Energy (see