Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Washington County
Conflict-of-Interest Delays Vote on SWPA Beech Hollow Power Plant
What happens when two of three elected town supervisors either have a lease with a pipeline company, or have close family members who have leases with the pipeline company, and they must vote to approve a new power plant project that would use shale gas from that pipeline to power it? It’s called a conflict of interest, and we’re about to find out the answer to that question in Robinson Township (Washington County), PA.
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National Grid, the electric and natural gas utility company that serves part of New York City and all of Long Island, has been the target of a smear campaign by New York Gov. Cuomo, who ordered his Dept. of Environment Conservation (DEC) to reject the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project in May (see 
Apparently environmental radicals in the state of New Jersey can “have their way” with its Democrat Governor, Phil Murphy–just about any time they want. Murphy has the disturbing habit of genuflecting to his leftist base and has done so once again by coming out against a plan to build a Marcellus gas-fired electric power plant planned for the Meadowlands, a plant that would feed electricity to New York City.
Two Members of Congress from the New Jersey delegation–Tom Malinowski and Bonnie Watson Coleman (both liberal Democrats)–are calling on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to issue a “stop-work” order for the PennEast Pipeline project. Not that any real work to build it has even begun! The lib Dems say because of the recent ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the entire project should be shut down and mothballed.
In April 2017 while using underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) for the Rover Pipeline project, some 2 million gallons of drilling mud went down a hole near the Tuscarawas River and popped back out where it should not have, harming a wetland by smothering aquatic life (see 
Leftist Democrats in Pennsylvania are still hopping mad that they couldn’t block Invenergy’s 1,480 megawatt, $1 billion Marcellus gas-fired electric plant called the Lackawanna Energy Center, located near Scranton, PA (see 
Talk about disingenuous political posturing by a couple of pompous windbags. Massachusetts’ two U.S. Senators, Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren and Ed “Lackey” Markey have introduced a bill in Congress to block the construction of a single pipeline compressor station–slated to be built in Weymouth, Mass. They even made up a catchy name for their bill: the “Community Outreach, Maintenance, and Preservation by Restricting Export Stations from Subverting Our Regulations Act.” Or “COMPRESSOR Act” for short. What childish dopes.
We have an ongoing problem. Some of the more radical protesters in the “environmentalist” movement–those who tend toward anarchy–illegally enter work sites for pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure under construction, and block the work being done in an attempt to cost companies money. Typically they chain themselves to a piece of equipment with a device that takes law enforcement authorities hours to remove. They cause delays and endanger themselves and workers and law enforcement with their illegal actions. It’s time to make the penalties for these dangerous, willful and illegal acts stiffer. Pennsylvania State Senators have introduced a pair of bills to help put a stop to this nonsense.
There is an ongoing question of whether or not the Ohio Marketable Titles Act (MTA), which impacts Utica shale rights, can be used to return previously severed mineral rights back to a surface landowner, or whether the MTA is superseded by Ohio Dormant Minerals Act (DMA). In February, Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals said the MTA *does* still apply to mineral rights (see 
In June the DRBC (Delaware River Basin Commission) approved a request by New Fortress Energy to build a $96 million 1,600-foot-long pier on the Delaware River, to be used for docking and loading two ships at a time with LNG (see 
In April President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to review Section 401 of the Clean Water Act–the section that grants states (and tribes) the right to have a say in pipeline projects (see 
In September MDN brought you news of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruling that disallows PennEast Pipeline from using the delegated power of eminent domain to cross properties either owned by, or with easements granted to, the state of New Jersey (see 
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), the utility and midstream giant based in Buffalo, NY, remains committed to building it’s Northern Access Pipeline project, a $500 million project that includes building 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern Pennsylvania up to Erie County, NY. The project also calls for 3 miles of new pipeline further up, in Niagara County, along with a new compressor station in the Town of Pendleton. Although New York State (under the profoundly corrupt Andrew Cuomo) continues to try and block the project, NFG says they will build it–in the 2022-23 time frame.
In April, Pennsylvania State Rep. Mike Turzai, Speaker of the House, and a group of conservative Republicans, announced a plan for the future of PA (see 
Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) previously filed a request with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that judicially creates a new law stipulating pipelines can’t cross under the Appalachian Trail without (no kidding) an Act of Congress. The Supremes get 8,000 such requests each year, and accept maybe 80 (or 1%). Lightning struck. The ACP case was accepted by the Supremes on Friday. This is *seriously* good news!
For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, PA, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. Part of the ordinance was tossed, and earlier this year a judge ordered the town to pay $102,000 in legal fees incurred by the operator the town has harmed by its action (see