Muskingum Watershed Joins Fight Against Ohio Forced Pooling Bill
In May MDN brought you the news that landowner Gateway Royalty was sounding the alarm over a new bill quickly advancing in the Ohio legislature. House Bill (HB) 152 would use forced pooling if 65% of a proposed unit’s landowners are leased (too low a bar) and also would force the landowner to accept a 12.5% royalty and force them to accept post-production deductions with royalties in some cases potentially going down to nothing (see Ohio HB 152 Forced Pooling Bill Disadvantages Unleased Landowners). Another major Ohio landowner with considerable acreage leased to the Utica Shale industry, the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD), is adding its voice of opposition to HB 152.
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What a major disappointment the Joe Biden administration has been for the country as a whole, and the oil and gas industry in particular. The Biden administration is packed with far-left socialists. The Dept. of Energy is the latest repository. A few days ago DOE announced another round of appointments to important positions within the agency. Most of them have zero experience in the energy industry. Most of them are political operatives (i.e. hacks) who ran the Biden campaign in various states during last year’s election. It’s political patronage–nothing new about that (happens on both sides of the aisle). The problem is the great damage this bunch will do to oil and gas during their hopefully brief tenure.
Last night the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) held a virtual hearing on a compromise plan between Energy Transfer/Sunoco Logistics and the DEP to allow ET/Sunoco to complete construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline project in the Marsh Creek State Park area (Chester County) where there have been some “issues” that halted work in the area. Given the buildup by the anti-fossil fuel left to turn out and mouth off at the hearing, we’re struck that (so far) it is radio silence in mainstream media about the hearing. We can’t find a single story about the hearing. We do, however, have a report on more than two dozen pro-pipeline speakers who turned out for the virtual hearing. Perhaps that’s why the media is silent?
Sabal Trail is a $3.2 billion, 515-mile interstate natural gas pipeline in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama built to deliver (in part) Marcellus gas to the southeast. Sabal Trail connects to Williams’ Hillabee Expansion Project, which is a pipeline spur built off the huge Transco pipeline system. On June 15 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued orders extending the time for both projects to complete the final bits of their construction by another two years.
A federal court in Pennsylvania upheld the findings of a U.S. Dept. of Labor investigation that oil and gas contract worker Henkels & McCoy Inc. owes big money in back wages and overtime to 362 workers at 11 worksites in five states, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Connecticut, Georgia, and (yes) even in New York too. The company must now pay $1,085,830 in back wages and damages.
Technically this post is not about the Marcellus/Utica, but it’s such great news we just have to share it. On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a new bill into law that bans state investments in banks, investors, and other companies that have cut ties with the oil and gas industry. Texas is divesting from the diverstors. Love it! It’s about time we fight back and fight back hard against the left.
“A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” (See below for the full quote.) Yesterday Pennsylvania Democrats unveiled their latest “generous gifts” they’re promising to bestow on Pennsylvanians from the public treasury if Gov. Wolf gets his way and imposes a Marcellus-killing carbon tax on electric power generation. The Dems figure they can raise about $300 million a year via a carbon tax and they have a wish list bigger than your wildest dreams for where they’ll spend it. One tiny problem for the Dems…
Several weeks ago we brought you the news that landowner Gateway Royalty was sounding the alarm over a new bill quickly advancing in the Ohio legislature. Ohio’s House Bill (HB) 152 would use forced pooling if 65% of a proposed unit’s landowners are leased (too low a bar) and also would force the landowner to accept a 12.5% royalty and force them to accept post-production deductions with royalties in some cases potentially going down to nothing (see 
In a brilliant move aimed at boxing in the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), two northeastern Pennsylvania State Senators–Gene Yaw and Lisa Baker–along with members of the PA Senate Republican Caucus (27 Senators in all), filed a lawsuit in January against the DRBC accusing the quasi-governmental agency of “taking” the property rights of PA residents without just compensation under the law (see 
In March we told you about House of Representatives (HR) Bill 1512, the Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation’s Future Act (or CLEAN Future Act). The bill gives vast powers to the unelected bureaucrats at the EPA to set new regulatory demands before permits can be approved for facilities that produce plastics or the raw materials used to produce plastics, such as ethylene or propylene (see 
Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) plan to flow more natural gas to Westchester and New York City is called the East 300 Upgrade Project. The project involves upgrades at two existing compressor stations (in Pennsylvania), along with building a brand new compressor station in West Milford (Passaic County), just across the border and not far from Westchester County, NY. Two weeks ago we told you area residents and leftwing environmentalists had convinced the county to officially oppose the project (see 
Leftists in states like California, Washington, and New York either already have, or are attempting to, outlaw the use of natural gas by homes and businesses. The first step they take is to disallow any new buildings to be connected to natural gas delivery lines. Eventually, they will force existing customers to stop using natural gas and force them to use electricity instead for heating and cooking. Or simply go without heat and cooking (they really don’t care). Leftists are drunk with their own power to force other people to do what they want them to do. Meanwhile, other states, like Texas, Florida, and many others are blocking efforts to block natural gas. The pro-gas states are actually winning the gas-ban war.
Yesterday the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) submitted an advisory bulletin to the Federal Register. The notice is for pipeline operators. It reminds them that PHMSA has a very big stick that the agency intends to use to force pipeline owners to clamp down on fugitive methane emissions. PHMSA is using the Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act of 2020, passed and signed during the waning days of the Trump administration, as a big stick to force expensive upgrades to capture every last molecule of CH4, supposedly to cut down on man-made global warming.
Two and a half years after Energy Transfer’s (ET) 24-inch Revolution Pipeline entered service in western Pennsylvania and exploded following a landslide (in September 2018), the pipeline finally returned to service in March of this year (see 
Pennsylvania’s Democrats are having trouble selling the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax aimed at shutting down PA’s coal and natural gas-fired power plants, and by extension shutting down many shale-related jobs in the state. The Dems can’t paper over the fact that RGGI will spell massive layoffs. So what do they propose? Government handouts to those who get laid off, paying them literally pennies on the dollar in government welfare checks in return for “saving the planet” by shuttering coal and gas-fired plants (and putting people out of work). That’s the brilliant solution proposed in a bill offered up by southeast PA state Senator Carolyn Comitta (D-Chester County).