What’s the Status of FERC’s Proposed Global Warming Regs for Pipes?
In February, three Democrat FERC commissioners voted to adopt onerous new regulations to use global warming considerations when approving (more like disapproving) pipeline projects (see FERC Democrats Ram Thru Global Warming Policy for Pipe Decisions). A month later, in the face of stiff opposition, the Dems backtracked and converted the new regs into “draft” mode, giving them time to figure out how to ram this through with less opposition (see FERC’s Glick Does “Abrupt About-Face” on New Global Warming Regs). One thing is for sure: This issue is not dead. The Dems will bring it back around, likely after the election. Where do things stand now? And what will happen when the onerous new regs are resurrected, as we know they will be?
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One step forward and two steps back. That country tune went through our head as we read about the progress being made by Williams with its Regional Energy Access Expansion Pipeline project in Pennsylvania. The project, aimed at competing with the now-dead PennEast Pipeline project by flowing gas from northeastern Pennsylvania to the Trenton, NJ area, will get a virtual public hearing by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection on Wednesday, October 5.
We will continue to update MDN readers throughout the month of September as U.S. Senator Joe Manchin’s huge gamble of trading away the future of the country to finish the Mountain Valley Pipeline plays out. We spotted a story that quotes powerful Democrat members of the U.S. House of Representatives saying they have no allegiance to a deal made in the Senate–even though Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised support. A radical organization called Earthjustice (an adjunct of the Democrat Party) will hold a rally in the D.C. swamp today to oppose Manchin’s “save MVP” bill. You can expect a fierce battle against Manchin’s plan. Even if he wins (we hope he does) and MVP gets done, Manchin still traded away our country’s future to get it done. It’s not a good bargain, in our humble opinion.
The Bidenistas are at it again. The radicals that now occupy the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have denied a request by Cheniere Energy (THE largest LNG exporter) to exempt compressor turbines at its Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi facilities from an obscure but onerous new regulation cooked up by the left. Cheniere currently exports 56% of all exported U.S. LNG. The EPA decision means Cheniere and other LNG exporters with large turbines will have to scale back exports to comply with this new reg–which is the intention. Bottom line: Biden is now screwing Europe as our exports will decrease at the very time Europe needs them the most. Go Joe!
Perhaps it’s not polite to say so out loud, but anyone who says New England needs to end its reliance on natural gas used to produce electricity, with winter about to begin and unreliable renewables not capable of making up the shortfall, is a lunatic. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is holding a forum today in Burlington, Vermont, to discuss New England’s electric grid. ISO-New England, the region’s grid operator, will argue that natural gas supplies and grid reliability go hand-in-hand. A group of lunatics, including the Northeast Clean Energy Council, will argue that natgas should be cut off, forcing the region to adopt other sources of electricity. To which we say, why don’t they go first? The lunatics advocating to cut off natgas should unhook themselves from the electric grid in the dead of winter and see how that works out for them. Show us how it’s done.
Located in Lusby, Maryland, Cove Point LNG is the first major LNG export facility to locate on the East Coast. It is recognized as one of the most technically advanced and environmentally sensitive LNG facilities in the world. The Cove Point LNG Terminal has a storage capacity of 14.6 billion cubic feet (Bcf) and a daily send-out capacity of 1.8 Bcf. The owners/managers of Cove Point recently filed a preliminary request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to increase export capacity by an extra 20 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) by installing a small liquefaction unit to capture “boil off gas” the plant currently evaporates during normal operations.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, traded away the future of the country by supporting the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (the remnants of the Green New Deal) in return for finishing the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline along with a few other concessions for the oil and gas industry (see 
Last week MDN told you that three radical environmental groups challenging an air permit issued by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for the Renovo Energy Center, a Marcellus-fired power plant in Clinton County, PA, won a partial summary judgment lowering the amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) the new plant can emit (see 
The left finds the most devious ways to sink their claws into the fabric of American society and force it to conform to their twisted worldview–like using an obscure regulation promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In February 2022, the EPA announced a “minor” change to a regulation governing gas-fired turbines under the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), a framework in place since 2004. At first glance, the EPA’s announcement seems to be a minor update to a highly technical rule. However, a careful examination of the list of impacted units reveals that the change in enforcement framework could have significant impacts on both supply and demand dynamics in natural gas markets in the U.S. and beyond, affecting LNG exports, gas-fired power plants, and gas transmission and processing infrastructure (pipelines) in particular.
It does our heart good to see people pushing back against the woke leftism that is called ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing. We always feel a bit conflicted when discussing ESG. We are NOT talking about companies, many of them in the Marcellus/Utica, that have programs and efforts underway to become ever better corporate citizens. What we are talking about is leftists forcing investors to abandon investments in fossil energy companies by using arbitrary ESG standards (that they make up and enforce). Companies that force ESG investing include the largest investment firm on the planet–BlackRock. We spotted an excellent story in the Wall Street Journal that says it’s time to bust up big woke ESG companies like BlackRock by using existing anti-trust laws. Amen to that!
In September 2021, the Weirton (WV) Zoning Board of Appeals rejected a request by Southwestern Energy to build a well pad inside city limits (see 
We experienced déjà vu as we read about a hearing held Tuesday evening in Plum Boro (Allegheny County, PA) about a proposed shale wastewater injection well. Some 20 people made their way to the microphones to voice their objections to plans by Penneco Environmental Solutions to site a second injection well in the boro–right next to an existing injection well. We’ve heard it all before, almost four years ago, when some of the same people objected to Penneco’s plans to install the first injection well (see 
In May 2021, the radicals from PennFuture, the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council, and the so-called Center for Biological Diversity (better named the Center for Leftwing Conformity) challenged an air permit issued by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for the Renovo Energy Center, a Marcellus-fired power plant in Clinton County (northcentral), PA (see