Beaver County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | PennEnergy Resources | Pennsylvania | Regulation
PA DEP Blocks Use of SWPA Creek Water for Fracking
In July, a Pennsylvania Democrat lawmaker from Beaver County (southwestern PA) who professes to support the Marcellus industry, Rep. Rob Matzie, wrote a letter to Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell (a fellow Dem) asking him to deny a request by PennEnergy Resources to withdraw as much as 3 million gallons of water a day from Big Sewickley Creek and one of its tributaries for shale fracking (see Dem PA Lawmaker Wants to Block Use of Creek Water for Fracking). McDonnell honored his fellow Dem’s request and has blocked PennEnergy’s request.
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“All aboard! Next stop, responsibly sourced gas.” Both the Marcellus/Utica and the Haynesville shale plays have emerged as the major shale basins for so-called certified natural gas. Certified for what? Certified that the companies extracting it and (now) the companies flowing it through pipelines (i.e. the midstream) are doing so “responsibly.” We guess they did so irresponsibly before, right? What exactly is responsibly sourced gas (RSG) and how is the midstream (and upstream) tackling certification?
Joe Biden is completely inept. Everyone can see it, whether they publicly admit it or not. He’s blown it. For any given decision he’s made, he’s made the wrong decision 100% of the time. Yesterday we told you about Biden’s preference for OPEC oil over American oil (see 
Both U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have essentially steered their respective countries off the road and into an energy ditch. Perhaps Johnson can be forgiven for simply following existing policies and kowtowing to European environmental extremists. Biden has no such excuse. Biden inherited a country that was, after more than 50 years, energy independent. In the space of eight months, Biden turned our country into an energy-dependent nation once again–relying on our enemies (Saudi Arabia and Russia) to provide for our energy needs. How sad.
Comrade Joe Biden has painted himself into a corner. As Biden entered office, the United States of America was, after more than 50 years, energy independent. Upon seizing power, Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada and illegally banned federal oil and gas leasing. Now we have an oil and gas shortage and Biden is begging OPEC+ to increase production. What a dunce. This is how inept socialists are. So what can Biden do to get himself out of the corner he’s painted himself (and us) into?
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia remains the only thing standing in the way of the Democrats’ far-left, socialist plan to remake the country using a pair of bills that will spend over $5 trillion of your tax money. Both the infrastructure bill and the so-called budget reconciliation bill contain new regulations and laws that directly, nakedly, attack the oil and gas industry. The Democrats want to end fossil fuels–a truly frightening (and stupid) plan. Manchin is holding them back. Will he cave?
Looks like the union bosses, who never suffer as the rank and file do, have been bought off by a band of sleazy Democrats in Congress. A group of Dem Senators, including the bumbling Sen. Bob Casey from Pennsylvania and the shameful Sherrod Brown from Ohio, have introduced a bill laughingly called the “American Energy Worker Opportunity Act” to substitute low-wage government welfare for high-paying jobs in the fossil fuel industry. Metaphorically the bill says “Here’s a Yugo to replace your Chevy Tahoe, now sit down, shut up, and be happy with it–because your sacrifice saves the planet.” Will rank and file union members actually fall for it? Will they trade $40/hour jobs in the oil and gas industry for minimum wage jobs installing solar panels plus food stamps? That’s the deal on offer from the Dems.
The prospect that the federal government may soon lavish trillions of dollars on the states (the Dems’ way of buying votes with the unfortunate result of causing hyperinflation) has states, especially those with Democrat governors, salivating. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is positively giddy at the prospect. Tommy has talked to his good buddy Patty (McDonnell, Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection) about all the gajillions of dollars that will flow to the Keystone State when Biden and the Dems finally (someday) pass their budget-busting bills. McDonnell has some plans for some of that money. He is beginning to recruit companies to help plug old abandoned oil and gas wells across the state.
Just two weeks ago MDN told you that Robinson Power Company LLC planned to resume construction of the Beech Hollow Power Plant in Robinson Township (Washington County), PA, a 1,000-megawatt Marcellus-fired project (see 
The American Exploration & Production Council (AXPC), which represents major oil and gas companies across the country, including many of the top producers in the Marcellus/Utica, is sounding the alarm that Joe Biden’s massive multi-trillion dollar reconciliation bill will destroy 90,000 jobs in the O&G industry and trim $9 billion out of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Democrat Party aims to destroy fossil fuels and the $3.5 trillion (or $1 trillion or whatever it ends up being) so-called reconciliation bill is designed to do just that.
Brian Anderson is director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and now the head of the Biden administration’s Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization, an effort to kill the use of fossil fuels (see 
Our federal government is out of control under the doddering Joe Biden and those who pull his strings. Earlier this month Biden directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to impose a mandate on all employers with 100 or more workers that forces employers to either ensure workers are vaccinated against COVID-19, or tested weekly. This kind of government coercion is not acceptable. It’s having a big impact on the oil and gas industry where vaccination rates are lower than the general population.
Imagine Hershey Park getting fined for smelling like a Hershey’s chocolate bar. Or Starbucks getting fined because the businesses next door can smell the coffee. The Shell cracker plant is getting fined for smelling like…maple syrup? Last week residents in several Beaver County, PA municipalities neighboring the Shell ethane cracker complex reported smelling something like a strong whiff of maple syrup. Shell immediately hired a third-party investigator and believes they now know what caused the smell.