NETL’s Brian Anderson Continues to Peddle Biden’s Green Breadcrumbs
Yesterday the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a puff piece praising Brian Anderson, 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 NETL Flacks for Biden’s Kill Fossil Fuels Plan at M-U Event). We like Anderson and his role at NETL, but we don’t like his new role in pimping for the Biden administration’s aim to end fossil fuels.
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On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee approved a letter to the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC), asking the IRRC to oppose the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an obscene carbon tax aimed at closing down coal and natural gas-fired power plants in the state. Democrats on the committee railed against the vote calling it meaningless when they know it’s anything but. If the IRRC turns against RGGI, the left’s carbon tax scheme will die.
There is a very real and tangible cost to the delays coming from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with respect to reviewing natural gas pipeline projects. Those delays, intentionally created by current FERC Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick, are costing West Virginians jobs and money. JB McCuskey, the state auditor for WV, should know. He audits how tax dollars are spent in the state. His office reviews and approves general operating budgets for some 700 municipalities, counties, and school districts across the state. McCuskey says FERC is tangibly hurting the state of WV by dragging its feet in reviewing pipeline projects.
Spire STL is a 65-mile pipeline that connects to and flows Marcellus/Utica gas from the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline to residents and businesses in the St. Louis, MO area. The pipeline began flowing gas in late 2019 (see 
Ohio mineral rights owner Gateway Royalty researched unitization (aka force pooling) in the state and discovered a disturbing change introduced in existing unitization beginning three years ago. Since February 13, 2018, a “market enhancement” clause has been included in Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) forced pooling unitization orders, which allows the unit operator to deduct post-production costs from the royalties owed to mineral owners. These post-production costs are sometimes as much as 95% of the gross sale price. Gateway called attention to the practice and ODNR has since backed down and no longer includes the market enhancement clause in new unitization orders.
The New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), completely corrupted by radicals under the thumb of outgoing Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has struck again. The DEC has filed a letter with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) blasting a plan to boost capacity at two existing compressor stations along the Iroquois Gas Transmission System pipeline. DEC says more natural gas flowing along the pipeline (desperately needed in both New York City and in New England) will cause more mythical global warming and therefore FERC should reject the request. How sad. How intellectually bankrupt.
Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline is the gift that keeps on giving…for the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The DEP keeps assessing fines for alleged construction violations that happened a year or more ago. This time the DEP has fined ME2 for supposed violations happening in early 2020 in four Pennsylvania counties: Blair, Cumberland, Juniata, and Lebanon. The problems were “inadvertent returns” of drilling mud in several swamps (“wetlands”) and creeks. Yes, ME2 is once again up Snitz Creek…
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has disregarded the petulant demands of anti-fossil fuel fanatics and has given its permission to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project to switch the method it uses to cross 136 streams and 47 wetlands. For roughly 70 miles of the pipeline’s 303-mile route, MVP asked FERC in early February to change the method of installation from open trench to trenchless, drilling under the body of water using horizontal directional drilling (see 
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 
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!