Columbia Pushes Back on “Rehearing” for Pipeline Under Potomac
Anti-fossil fuelers are on a holy mission to stop a 3.5-mile, 8-inch pipeline from being built under the Potomac River by Columbia Pipeline (see Maryland Antis Oppose 13th Pipeline Under Potomac as “Dangerous”). The proposed pipeline, from Maryland on one side of the river to West Virginia on the other side, will be built to feed a larger pipeline project from Mountaineer Gas called the Eastern Panhandle Expansion. After receiving a request from colluding Big Green groups, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission agreed to “rehear” its decision to approve the project (see FERC to Rehear Decision re Columbia Gas Pipeline Under Potomac). This week Columbia sent FERC a detailed analysis of why the decision to approve should not be reheard, and why the pipeline project should move forward as planned.
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Earlier this week the Franklin County (VA) Planning Commission voted 5-0 to allow Roanoke Gas Co. to build and operate a “gate station”–a connection to the under-construction Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Roanoke Gas is laying new pipelines in the area and needs natgas to feed its new customers. Antis showed up at the meeting (what’s new?) to complain and threaten and moan and whine. They actually tried to say there is no “public benefit” for MVP, and that this gate station is simply a ruse to give the appearance of a public benefit.
Our country sacrifices a lot on the altar of so-called safety. Crises are often used as an excuse for “the government” to use a heavy hand in controlling people and actions they (“the government”) deem a threat. Usually it’s a threat to their power. But the justification offered by the government is to protect the well-being of the citizenry. And the citizenry, convinced they are in mortal peril, is only too happy to yield their hard-won rights as free citizens–in the name of “safety.” It’s happening again–this time in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, where unelected regulators have ordered a private business, National Grid, to cease all work on its natural gas pipeline system following a minor incident of too much pressure.
More bad news for EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for MVP in West Virginia (see 
Some of the most important, and slowest, permits issued to drill a new shale well in Pennsylvania are “Erosion and Sediment Control” permits. Well pads and the roads built to access them involve such permits. When sediment/erosion permits are delayed, the whole project is delayed. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection published an updated general permit covering Oil and Gas Development Erosion and Sedimentation Control (ESCGP-3) in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on Saturday, Oct. 6. The new permit is supposed to streamline and make the approval process faster. We’ll see about that.
We’re feeling better and better that President Trump is ready to take action to overrule states like New York that abuse the federal Clean Water Act in order to block interstate pipeline projects. We first picked up on comments by Energy Secretary Rick Perry back in May (see 
Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) finally (finally!) granted Williams permission to open the taps up and let natural gas flow along the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, a 200-mile greenfield pipeline from northeastern to southeastern PA. Startup was delayed two months from Williams’ original estimate (due to Williams, not FERC). But that’s all behind us now. Beginning tomorrow, Marcellus molecules from Cabot Oil & Gas, Chief Oil & Gas, and Seneca Resources will begin flowing along the pipeline, heading out of our region where those molecules will fetch higher prices.
In August MDN told you the rumor mill was in overdrive that Trump has already picked a replacement for outgoing Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member Rob Powelson (see 
Earlier this year the federal EPA approved a new injection well for Plum Borough in Allegheny County, PA (see 
Environmentalists who buy into the fairy tale of man-made global warming have a new tool to force their will on the American people: Get liberal governors to abuse state review authority granted to them under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) in order to block federal pipeline projects. NY Gov. Cuomo was one of the first to bastardize the intent of the CWA in this fashion. It is a hijacking of the CWA and its intended purpose–and it must stop.
In early 2017 at the beginning of a new session of the Pennsylvania Legislature, PA State Senator Gene Yaw introduced a pair of bills he dubbed the “Oil and Gas Lease Protection Package” (see 