NY DPS Approves Gas Rate Hike to Finance Brooklyn Pipeline Project
In February 2020 we told you about a mob of anti-fossil fuelers attempting to block the final few feet of construction for a 6.8-mile natural gas pipeline stretching from Brownsville to North Brooklyn in New York City (see Will a Brooklyn, NY Mob Stop Completion of National Grid Pipeline?). In December of 2020 NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio called for the builder, National Grid, to abandon the almost-done project (see NYC Mayor de Blasio Seeks to Block Brooklyn NatGas Pipe Project). Fortunately, National Grid didn’t abandon it. In fact, last Thursday the New York Dept. of Public Service (DPS) voted unanimously to approve a rate increase for 1.9 million National Grid customers to help pay for the pipeline.
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Somehow the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) thinks it can tell the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) what it can and can’t do with respect to evaluating pipeline projects. EPA is “advising” FERC to begin incorporating the “social cost of carbon” into its environmental reviews, taking an added look at the climate change impacts of natural gas infrastructure projects. Who the heck does the EPA think it is? Climate God?
Yet another fine for Energy Transfer (ET), assessed by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). This time the DEP has fined ET $140,000 for violations that occurred in 2019 and 2020 during the construction of ET’s B15 Well Connect Pipeline construction project located in Beaver County, PA. According to the consent order and agreement (COA), “sections of the pipeline project were not temporarily stabilized, areas of the site showed accelerated erosion and sedimentation, waterbars were not installed properly or not installed in the approved locations, and erosion and sedimentation best management practices (BMP) were inoperable or ineffective.”
You have to say one thing about environmentalist wacko zealots–they never give up. Ever. We’re talking about the Big Green money behind Appalachian Mountain Advocates, Southern Environmental Law Center, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (among 19 groups in total) which have filed a “request” (i.e. demand) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to expand an environmental review for Equitrans Midstream’s 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project.
A new bill just introduced in the Pennsylvania House by State Rep. Eric Davanzo (Republican from Westmoreland County), House Bill (HB) 1763, clears up the confusion and bastardization of the term “royalty,” making it easy for everyone to know what can and cannot be deducted from royalties with respect to oil and gas leases. Davanzo got 23 of his fellow House members to co-sponsor the bill. It is a refreshingly simple bill that does not change any existing contracts. It defines the point to establish the value of gas (or oil) as that point when it is sold to an unrelated third-party purchaser. Simple!
No doubt you’ve heard plenty in mainstream media recently about the $1 trillion so-called infrastructure bill currently being debated in Congress. What the mainstream media won’t tell you is the truth–that this bill is incredibly bad for the country in its current form. The bill includes measures allowing more federal control over state and local building codes to force everyone to adopt Biden’s “appliance electrification” plan by discouraging the use of natural gas in homes and businesses. Yes, Biden plans to phase out your right to burn natural gas in your furnace and in your stove. Welcome to the USSR.
The CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit established in 2015 for the purpose of educating thought leaders, policymakers, and the general public about the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy, has just published a detailed analysis of Pennsylvania’s plan to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI (full copy below). In the report, more than 70 top scientists conclude that PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s justifications for the RGGI carbon tax “are invalid and its claims of environmental and economic benefits are fiction.”
In June MDN brought you the news that Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO) pipeline is being flow-restricted by the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA). Some 40% of the Marcellus/Utica molecules that flow through TETCO’s pipeline to destinations in the southeastern U.S. disappeared and were predicted to stay that way until the end of September (see 
The anti-fossil fuelers of Nicetown, PA (near Philadelphia) aren’t so nice. Even though a Marcellus gas-fired power plant in Nicetown has already been built by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) and is currently in operation (has been since last November) providing cheap electricity for railroads and heat for a local bus depot, antis want it all shut down. They claim it’s racist to have the facility located in the community where it’s located. The Joe Biden EPA is investigating Nicetown with an eye to shutting it all down. What a tragedy on so many levels. Once again energy has been politicized by the left in this country.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is moving to revise a two-decade-old standard that guides approval of proposed interstate natural gas pipelines. FERC Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick informed a congressional panel last week of the impending changes. Glick wants to permanently change the standards used so future FERC commissioners will be handcuffed to his twisted view of global warming when considering whether or not to approve a pipeline project.
In June MDN brought you the news that three Democrat judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval for a long-completed and flowing natural gas pipeline in the St. Louis area that flows Marcellus/Utica gas to residents, businesses, and electric generating plants throughout the region (see 
In June MDN brought you the news that Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO) pipeline is being flow-restricted by the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA). Some 40% of the Marcellus/Utica molecules that flow through TETCO’s pipeline to destinations in the southeastern U.S. have disappeared and were predicted to stay that way until the end of September (see 
Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) had laid 31 miles of pipeline and had cut trees for 222 miles along the 600-mile route before Dominion Energy, the builder, decided last summer it no longer wanted to be in the interstate pipeline business, canceling ACP (see