Maryland Gov. Hogan Pulls the Trigger, Commits Fracking Suicide
Metaphorically speaking–Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s finger was on the trigger of a loaded pistol, pointed at the head of the once-great State of Maryland. And now, Hogan pulled the trigger, assassinating any hope of new jobs, new wealth for some of the state’s poorest people (farmers and landowners in western Maryland), and new tax revenue for local communities. BANG. Done. Killed. Death. Thanks Larry, you da man. We previously reported that the Maryland House had loaded the chamber, and then the Senate had cocked the gun and put it in Hogan’s hand (see Gun Loaded & Cocked, Maryland About to Commit Fracking Suicide). On Tuesday, Hogan pulled the trigger. In the midst of the ebullient reporting on Maryland’s action by so-called mainstream media, we continue to ask the question, who got a payoff here (see Antis Deliriously Happy with Maryland Frack Ban, Who Paid Who?). Is anybody investigating Hogan to see if his bank account just got really fat? Or if Hogan was promised something in return for his sell-out of fracking (he ran for governor as a supporter of fracking). We sincerely wonder where the payoff is, because if you dig deep enough, it will be there…
Read More “Maryland Gov. Hogan Pulls the Trigger, Commits Fracking Suicide”
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project, which filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2015, is being built by EQT, NextEra Energy and several other partners. The project has faced stiff opposition from landowners in both West Virginia and Virginia. Although the project is not yet fully approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the project did get a favorable Draft Environmental Impact Statement from FERC last September (see 
The Millennium Pipeline stretches ~244 miles from Independence in Steuben County, NY to Buena Vista in Rockland County, NY. The Millennium, which is supplied by local production and storage fields and interconnecting upstream pipelines, serves customers along its route in New York’s Southern Tier region and helps meet the energy needs of northeast markets. In August 2016, the Millennium filed an application for what it calls its Eastern System Upgrade (see 
Pennsylvania State Rep. Jason Ortitay, Republican who represents of Washington and Allegheny counties in southwestern PA, last week introduced PA House Bill (HB) 1003 which would require the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to compile, organize and list all permits related to oil and gas drilling in two places: in one location in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, and on the DEP website. At first blush this seemed a bit odd to us. In the past MDN published a research report called the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook. In producing that work, MDN editor Jim Willis would regularly (3x per year) access DEP permit data–which is available from the DEP website. Granted, the information is not the easiest to find, and when you locate it, you must download it and suck it into a database to get any meaningful value out of it. However, on a basic level, permit data IS available to the public from the DEP website–right now. We read a copy of the proposed bill (see it below). MDN’s takeaway after reading the bill: This bill has more to do with “encouraging” the DEP to speed up permit approvals than it does with making information publicly available…
In January the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave its final stamp of approval for Spectra Energy’s Atlantic Bridge project (see 
In March 2015, Williams announced that its Transco pipeline subsidiary had filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for its Dalton Expansion Project, which will expand the Transco and flow more Marcellus Shale gas from New Jersey all the way to Mississippi, primarily for electric generation plants, but also for local natural gas distribution by utilities (see 
We found this story kind of funny. Apparently the word has gone out at the Trump Dept. of Energy that staffers, when preparing reports for the public, should avoid using the phrase “climate change.” Which is an asinine phrase, let’s admit it. By definition the climate changes. It changes every day and has since there’s been a climate. Anti fossil fuel zealots have tried to co-opt the phrase to mean “man-made global warming.” Because Mom Earth isn’t actually warming, it’s kind of hard to keep calling it “global warming.” So they invented the euphemism “climate change” instead. Team Trump has had enough of that kind of verbal dissembling. No more. Say what you mean and mean what you say. And so the egghead prima donnas who think they’re SO much smarter than everyone else are in full, fake outrage mode. They’re making fun of the adults in the room who have told them to straighten up and quit acting like petulant children…
The same old (very small) cast of environmental radicals is claiming victory in Maryland over the recently passed bill to ban fracking statewide–a bill that now sits on traitor Gov. Larry Hogan’s desk (he’s promised to sign it). Radicals from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (and Food & Water Watch, and the Sierra Club, et al), who are waging a holy war against fossil fuels, say this momentous occasion is evidence of new “bipartisan” support sweeping the nation–that Maryland’s vote has “national implications.” It’s nothing of the sort. Anti-fossil fuel nutters are still by and large Democrats (and Socialists) and confined to a few far-left states (Maryland, New York, Vermont). Larry Hogan is an anomaly–a Republican who ran on a platform of support for fracking who suddenly, without warning and for inexplicable reasons, flipped and promised to sign a ban bill should one be proffered. We wonder, who paid who? There is corruption at work in this situation, of that we have no doubt. All of the so-called “leaders” of the ban frack movement in the Maryland legislature come from either the Washington, D.C. suburbs, or the Baltimore area. They are located on the opposite side of the state from where fracking would, theoretically, take place. These enviro radicals have hijacked the property rights of landowners in Allegany County and Garrett County, the only two Maryland counties with commercially viable shale deposits that could be fracked. It will be a sad day when Hogan turns his back on the people of Maryland and signs the law…
As MDN reported, last week U.S. District Judge Robert Mariani ruled against a Wayne County landowner in a lawsuit that challenged the right of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to stop fracking in the Delaware River Basin (see 
Good news for Pennsylvania drillers: the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) finally, after years of review, granted permission to two different companies to operate two new wastewater injection wells in the Keystone State. One well is located in Elk County, the other in Indiana County. With these two new injection wells coming online, the state will have a total of eight operating injection wells (vs. hundreds in Ohio). You may have seen news about the newly authorized injection wells from other news sources yesterday. But you read MDN for “the rest of the story.” And here it is, something you won’t find anywhere else (until other news sources read MDN): As soon as the DEP issued the permits for the injection wells, the DEP filed lawsuits against the two townships where the injection wells will be located, because both of those townships–Highland Township in Elk County, and Grant Township in Indiana County–had previously passed so-called Home Rule Charters in an attempt to prevent the injection wells from being located in their towns. The DEP has sued each of them (copy of the Highland lawsuit below) to correct laws that attempt to prevent the DEP from doing its job in authorizing the injection wells. We have the full news of the DEP’s decision to permit the injection wells, along with details about the lawsuits, below…
Yesterday President Trump made a trip to the Environmental Protection Agency to sign an executive order titled the “Energy Independence Executive Order” which takes aim at rolling back Obama’s disastrous Clean Power Plan. The new executive order also lifts a ban on leasing federal lands for coal mining, nixes new regulations aimed at trapping every last molecule of methane from oil and gas drilling & pipelines (unrealistic and very costly), and reduces, but does not eliminate, the role of so-called global warming when making decisions about authorizing new infrastructure projects. It was, by all accounts, a red letter day for responsible environmental policy–a day to correct some of the extreme overreach we’ve seen by the EPA over the past eight years under the Obama regime. Below we have a copy of the executive order and some of the reaction to it…
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project, which filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2015, is being built by EQT, NextEra Energy and several other partners. The project has faced stiff opposition from landowners in both West Virginia and Virginia. Although the project is not yet fully approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the project did get a favorable Draft Environmental Impact Statement from FERC last September (see 
Last December the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) said it would go on a “listening tour” in early 2017, to focus on so-called environmental justice–whatever that is (see 
In May 2016, Williams’ Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company (Transco) pre-filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a project called the Northeast Supply Enhancement project (see 