PA Dems Try to Defend Opposition to Petchem Bill at Town Hall
Some Pennsylvania state Democrats are obviously feeling the political heat over their opposition to House Bill (HB) 1100, meant to attract brand new business and jobs to the state in the petrochemical industry (see PA Senate Tweaks, Passes Bill Attracting Cracker-Type Investment). Some (not all) Dems hate fossil fuels and will do anything to oppose them, including Rep. Danielle Friel Otten, a radical leftist from the Philadelphia suburbs. She opposes HB 1100 and the jobs the bill would bring.
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Last Friday MDN told you about an initiative in Arizona and five other states to block the right of local municipalities from banning natural gas appliances and natural gas heat from homes and businesses (see 
We’ve commented from time to time on municipalities (cities) that stupidly ban new home and business construction from installing and connecting to natural gas supplies. Berkeley, California comes to mind since they were the first to do so. The trend is catching on in cities where leftist radicals infest city councils. In a bid to shut this madness down before it spreads (it’s the intellectual equivalent of the coronavirus), the state of Arizona, which shares a border with California wackos, last month passed a new law that puts a ban on municipal gas bans. Good for Arizona! Now five more states–Missouri, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Mississippi–are looking to ban gas bans too.
Is history repeating itself? Ohio House Bill 55 would require certain pieces of information to be included on royalty statements landowners receive from Ohio drillers. Ohio State Rep. Jack Cera (Democrat from Bellaire) introduced HB 55 last year–for the third time since 2011. Like the two previous times, the bill is now mired in committee and doesn’t appear to be making any headway toward a vote. Let’s look at what information landowners receive now under existing law, and what details they would receive under this bill if passed.
Some 30 radical environmental groups (including ringleader Penn Future) is fearful their campaign to stop House Bill (HB) 1100 is failing. HB 1100 is aimed at attracting new petrochemical investments to the state. How do we know Big Green is fearful? Because the groups are attempting to gin up opposition to the bill by staging a faux protest rally on March 9 at the Capitol in Harrisburg.
Last June the DRBC (Delaware River Basin Commission) approved a request by New Fortress Energy to build a $96 million 1,600-foot-long pier/dock on the Delaware River, to be used for docking and loading two ships at a time with LNG (see 
In April 2017 (almost three years ago) the Mariner East 1 pipeline sprung a small leak and spilled 20 barrels (~840 gallons) of ethane and propane in Berks County, near Philadelphia. Sunoco Logistics Partners, builder and maintainer of the pipeline, shut it down and fixed it over the next several days. Yesterday the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission announced a “settlement” with Sunoco, to fine the company $200,000. Sunoco, as part of the settlement, must also conduct a “remaining life” study of the pipeline. After all, it is almost 90 years old.
Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection Secretary Patrick McDonnell gave an embarrassing performance on Monday before the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee (ERE). He was there to answer questions about his agency’s annual budget request. As the discussion turned to Gov. Tom Wolf’s attempt to force PA to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), McDonnell equivocated and danced around questions about this tragedy-in-the-making. We understand…he has to support his boss. Like we said, embarrassing.
The companies behind PennEast Pipeline, a $1.2 billion greenfield pipeline project from Luzerne County, PA to Mercer County, NJ, have not given up on the long-delayed project–delayed mostly due to opposition from Big Green groups and their abuse of our court system to block the project. PennEast recently filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue of using eminent domain powers to cross land owned or controlled by the State of New Jersey. Since the original Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) certificate authorizing construction of the project expired on Jan. 19, 2020, PennEast asked FERC to extend it another two years (see 
In early December when Williams withdrew their fourth and final permit application to build the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project with the New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), we feared that maybe Williams had given up on the project (see 
In January the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) lifted a moratorium (in place for more than a year) on new construction permits for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project (see 
Last year a sewage treatment facility in Belle Vernon (Fayette County, PA) claimed the effluent (runoff) it was receiving from a nearby landfill in Westmoreland County contained high levels of salt and radioactivity and was causing damage to their treatment system (see 
Big time opposition continues to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to force the state to participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a tax on carbon aimed at coal and natural gas-fired electric power plants, with an eye to driving them out of business. We’ve written plenty about Wolf’s naked power grab, to force the state into RGGI without the legislature’s consent (