BLM Panders to Radicals, Cancels OH Wayne Natl Forest Auctions
One step forward and two steps back. That’s the modus operandi of the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the DC swamp dwellers who run it. After 10 long years, BLM finally began to auction a small amount of acreage in Wayne National Forest (WNF) in 2016 (see BLM Launches Auction to Lease Wayne National Forest for Fracking). WNF is a “patchwork” of public land scattered among private land. Some 60% of the mineral rights below WNF are privately owned. Those mineral rights owners have been denied the use of their property rights for over a decade. BLM controls drilling on federally-protected lands like WNF. BLM eventually conducted four (we think it’s four) auctions with under 2,000 acres total. And yet BLM still refuses to let drilling commence (see BLM Blocks Eclipse from Completing Utica Well in Wayne Natl Forest). On August 7 BLM announced another auction, for a piddly 75 acres. A radical Big Green group (far far out of the mainstream) called the Center for Biological Diversity protested the auction, and on August 28 BLM canceled the auction “while an appeal is under consideration.” That’s all it takes. Throw some Big Green money at eager radical lawyers, and everything stops. That’s all the excuse BLM needs. Who the heck in the Trump Administration is in charge of BLM? And why is this happening during Trump’s watch??…
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We finally come down to the final two lateral pipelines for Rover. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) played a game of hardball with Energy Transfer (ET) over the Rover Pipeline. For months FERC refused to allow four Rover laterals–feeder pipelines to shuttle gas from where it’s produced into the main Rover pipeline–to start up (see 
As we reported yesterday, EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) got some excellent news–that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had lifted a stop-work order on the project (see 
Some good news to lighten your Thursday. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order yesterday allowing Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to restart work on virtually all of the 303-mile project–everywhere but 28.5 miles in and around the pipeline’s path through Jefferson National Forest (about 9% of the total). On August 3, FERC told MVP to stop all construction, prompted by an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacating permits issued for the project as it crosses 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest in West Virginia and Virginia (see 
Two different townships in the Philadelphia area, amped-up by and using money from Big Green groups like THE Delaware Riverkeeper (aka Maya van Rossum), tried to stop Sunoco Logistics Partners’ Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project by claiming it violated local zoning ordinances. The construction of ME2 is governed by the PA state Public Utility Commission and the state Dept. of Environmental Protection. It is not a federal (i.e. FERC) project. Because it is a state-oversight project, the issue of primacy (whose rules and regulations govern) resides at the state level and not at the local level. Two local townships–one in Chester County the other in Delware County–argued in separate cases before PA Commonwealth Court that local zoning regulations for siting the pipeline should still apply. Commonwealth Court, in a pair of decisions earlier this year, ruled against that view (see 
Massachusetts is throwing up more roadblocks and hoops in order to slow down (stop?) a Kinder Morgan project to expand capacity of its Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) in the Springfield, Ma. area. Columbia Gas of Massachusetts and Holyoke Gas and Electric have both requested more natural gas from TGP. They need it, desperately. Kinder Morgan’s solution is to expand the delivery capability of the pipeline in the region by adding a minuscule 2.1 miles of new looping pipeline (buried next to an existing TGP pipe), upgrading a compressor station, and building a new connection, called a delivery gate. It’s a minimal project, and yet Massachusetts has just ruled Kinder will have to conduct a months (years?) long, full-blown environmental impact statement before they can do the work. Which we find strange. TGP is a federal, not state, regulated pipeline. TGP plans to file an application for the project, known as the “261 Upgrade Project” (named after Compressor Station 261), with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in September. Massachusetts does not have jurisdiction over the building of the project! Yet they are demanding an environmental impact study. If we were TGP, we’d tell Mass. to get lost…
We spotted a story that contains information we don’t fully understand. Columbia Gas Transmission is currently building the Mountaineer XPress Pipeline, a $2 billion, 170-mile pipeline that will flow 2.7 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day of natural gas from existing and future points of receipt along or near the Columbia pipeline system–most of it located in West Virginia (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) game of hardball with Energy Transfer over the Rover Pipeline has finally paid off. For months FERC has refused to allow four Rover laterals–feeder pipelines to shuttle gas from where it’s produced into the main Rover pipeline–to start up (see 
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has handed PA drillers a partial victory in their quest to block onerous new drilling regulations, part of something called Chapter 78a. In October 2016, after five years in the making, PA adopted new shale drilling regulations (see 
One more piece of the Obama “legacy”–the onerous, wildly unpopular Clean Power Plan (CPP) that assassinates coal powered energy and mortally wounds natural gas in favor of so-called renewable sources of energy–is now history. Well, it will be history after a few more years of legal wrangling. Let’s say the CPP is well on its way to the garbage can of history, where it belongs. The CPP (see 
Last week MDN told you about a George H.W. Bush district court judge in South Carolina who reversed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s order ending the tragedy of Obama’s Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule (see 
Anti-fossil fuel nutters are on a holy mission to stop a 3.5-mile, 8-inch pipeline from being built under the Potomac River by Columbia Gas, from Maryland to West Virginia (see 
The Utica Shale, which underlies much of the Marcellus Shale, also underlies part of Canada’s Quebec province. From time to time we highlight news concerning the Utica in Canada. There hasn’t been much news to highlight over the years since Quebec has had a moratorium on fracking since 2012. But as we reported in December 2016, something of a minor miracle happened–the Quebec National Assembly voted to pass Bill 106, ostensibly to support Quebec’s “clean power plan” (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has had a change of heart–sort of–with respect to their stop-work order issued to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). We previously told you that on August 3, FERC told MVP to stop all construction prompted by an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacating permits issued for the project as it crosses 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest in West Virginia and Virginia (see 
Work on the Mariner East 2 and 2x pipelines in West Whiteland Township, Chester County (near Philadelphia) stopped in May following a Public Utility Commission (PUC) administrative law judge’s highly questionable ruling (see