FERC Expected to Approve NEXUS Today; Surveyors have Armed Guards
Word on the street is that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will announce a decision today to approve the NEXUS Pipeline–a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. It is a critically needed pipeline to move Utica and Marcellus Shale gas from an over-saturated market in the northeast to markets in the Midwest and Canada. If the decision doesn’t come today, it will come very soon. As MDN reported yesterday, the small city of Green, OH (population 26,000) has put NEXUS on notice that if its surveyors show up and landowners refuse access, those surveyors will be arrested if they “trespass” on the landowner’s property (see Green, OH Threatens NEXUS Surveyors with Arrest for Trespassing). Other news agencies are reporting that surveyors are about to show up with armed guards. Into this mess may come an approval for the project. If NEXUS gets approved, it will have the right to use federal eminent domain laws to build the pipeline, regardless of landowner desires. Does eminent domain also include surveying? One would think so since surveying is part of the construction process. Green’s bluster may amount to nothing if the project receives a final approval today. Below are several stories about surveying for NEXUS, as well as a look at the FERC commissioners who will make the final decision on NEXUS…
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It’s now apparent that the fix has been in from the beginning–that New York’s corrupt Gov. Andrew Cuomo, colluding with New York’s corrupt Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, were on a mission to block the construction of the federally approved Constitution Pipeline, due to run from Susquehanna County, PA into Upstate New York (to Schoharie County). Before Cuomo decided to take the breathlessly lawsless act of blocking the pipeline by denying stream-crossing permits (being challenged in court), the Constitution asked for permission to begin clearing trees along the pipeline’s path. In January 2016, Schneiderman immediately objected (see 
Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) has been on a mission to expand their operation at the Southport Marine site in Philadelphia by leasing an additional 200 acres to build a terminal for shale oil imports and exports. Believe it or not, a plan to lease the extra space has been going on for more than two years (see 
Are those war drums we hear beating? Perhaps! If you are involved in the oil and gas industry in just about any capacity, it’s hard to miss the story of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and the paid criminal protesters who are trying to stop it (see 
In May of this year, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued more shale-killing regulations. The EPA issued 600 pages of new regulations that require drillers to install expensive new equipment to locate so-called fugitive methane that may or may not be leaking from wells, pipelines, etc. (see 
Something noteworthy has happened in Buckingham County, VA. Planning Commission members in the county worked hard to evaluate a request by Dominion for their Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, a request to build a compressor station in Buckingham County. Residents expressed concerns–over noise, air pollution, explosions–you name it. Planning Commission members listened, and in the end, voted to recommend that Dominion be allowed to build the compressor station, as long as they adhere to 40 conditions set forth in the Commission’s recommendation. You see, this is how adults do things. They are reasonable (able to be reasoned with). They listened, closely. They heard the concerns. They devised a plan that will allow Dominion to build the compressor station, but at the same time protect the residents that live near it. Of course that wasn’t good enough for the children-in-adult-bodies who chanted a threat to shut down the pipeline…
It’s about time! A U.S. District Court Judge in Texas recently granted Exxon the right to examine “internal phone records, other communications and depositions” of far-left Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, related to her involvement in attempting to persecute Exxon Mobil for daring to say man-made global warming may not be all it’s cracked up to be (see 
As MDN reported in September, the Maryland Dept. of the Environment (MDE) beat the Oct. 1 deadline to release onerous new fracking regulations (see 
Last month MDN wrote a post outlining an initiative to begin regulating small, low-pressure gathering pipelines–something not now done (see 
One of the most important choices before President-elect Trump is who he will select to run the rogue, out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency. Who will Trump pick to, as he calls it, “drain the swamp”? It’s an important choice. We need someone who will dismantle the wild, lawbreaking regulations of an agency operating unchecked for the past eight years. If you believe Reuters (and we’re not sure we do), Trump is looking at two people to head the EPA. Both would, it seems to us, do a good job of draining the EPA swamp…
Yesterday MDN told you that a war of words has broken out between the Obama U.S. Army Corps of Politicized Engineers and Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) over the Dakota Access Pipeline (see 
The New Jersey Division of the Rate Counsel (NJDRC) is a state government agency responsible for representing the interests of residents, businesses and other rate payers in dealing with regulated public utilities and insurance firms. In September the NJDRC filed a so-called analysis with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) slamming the need and cost recovery plan for the PennEast Pipeline–a $1 billion, 118-mile, primarily 36-inch pipeline that will get built from Dallas (Luzerne County), PA to Transco’s pipeline interconnection near Pennington (Mercer County), NJ. PennEast responded to the NJDRC’s analysis with an independent report written by Concentric Energy Advisors, rippping to shreds the arguments put forward by NJDRC (see 
The big Texas law firm Bracewell, which until earlier this year was Bracewell & Giuliani (Rudy left in January), has put together an helpful analysis of what changes we can expect under a President Trump Administration. Although they tackle a number of areas, we were interested to read their predictions for what will be happening with energy and the environment under President Trump. What’s in store for pipelines? Obama’s Clean Power Plan? EPA’s onerous regulations? The Bracewell legal beagles haul out their crystal ball and give us a glimpse…