Regulation

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    The ONLY Good Thing About Budget Deal: Lifts Oil Export Ban

    It was truly disheartening to learn of the complete sell-out by House Speaker Paul Ryan (Republican) and the Republican-led House in the latest budget deal. They essentially bent over and grabbed their ankles and assumed the position while Barack Hussein Obama had his way with them. This budget deal is repulsive–as grossly corrupt as it gets. The Democrats are even more corrupt–but we expect that of them. The only good thing that came from the budget deal, as near as we can tell, is that it lifts the 40-year ban on crude oil exports. As a Bloomberg article headline puts it, “Shale Drillers Are Now Free to Export U.S. Oil Into Global Glut.” Yeah, that about sums it up. Hey, having the crude oil ban lifted is good, we’re happy about that. But in the larger pantheon of the budget deal, we could have lived without it if we had gotten a better deal on far more critical items. Here’s what the inimitable Heartland Institute, one of our favorites, said about this disastrous budget deal…
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    NY Econ Dev Grant Signals Constitution Pipeline Approval Imminent

    celebrateSome very good news for supporters of the long-overdue Constitution Pipeline slated to run from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY. So far, New York has delayed granting stream-crossing permits for the project. We’ve advocated that it’s time for Williams and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take NY to court (see Time to Force NY DEC to Issue Permit for Constitution Pipeline). In fact, a Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) official has said the DEC is in danger of permanently losing control over issuing such permits if they don’t approve the Constitution’s request (see DEC Official Says NY in Danger of FERC Taking Over Pipeline Permits). The good news is that NY has approved funding for a project that will build a $1.5 million, 18-mile feeder pipeline from the Constitution Pipeline to a forklift manufacturing plant in Chenango County. After banning fracking and the multi-billion dollar economic bonanza it would have brought to upstate NY, Andrew Cuomo has stolen $2 billion from taxpayers statewide to fund “economic development” via something called Upstate Revitalization Initiative grants. There are four grants of $500 million. One of those grants was just made to the Southern Tier area, where fracking would have been the strongest had it been allowed. In other words, this is a bribe being paid to upstate voters. But we digress. Tucked into the $500 million “grant” (i.e. bribe) for the Southern Tier is $1.5 million to build a feeder pipeline from the Constitution Pipeline to Raymond Corporation in Greene, NY. Why approve $1.5 million for a feeder pipeline if you’re not going to approve the Constitution Pipeline itself? You wouldn’t–ergo the Constitution is about to get approved…
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    The One Thing Everyone Agreed on at PA Pipeline Task Force Mtg

    Yesterday saw another in a series of meetings by the Pennsylvania Task Force on Pipeline Infrastructure Development–the penultimate meeting for the group of 48 members appointed by Gov. Tom Wolf and the PennFuture Dept. of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley. At the last meeting, in November, the group introduced a list of 184 “recommendations” in a 335-page document that would “guide” future gathering pipeline development in the state (see PA Gathering Pipeline Draft “Recommendations” from Wolf Task Force). At yesterday’s meeting the usual anti-fossil fuelers were present to complain, which is what they always do. Seems they’re only happy when they can make other people’s lives miserable–and they did their best to do just that at yesterday’s meeting. According to one report, there was one thing (amazingly) everyone agreed on yesterday…
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    It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Climate Change World

    mad worldWe think it’s hard to overstate the power play being made by those who assembled in Paris earlier this month for the United Nations COP21 Climate Change Conference. As we previously wrote two days ago, Obama will never get Congress to ratify a treaty based on the agreement he signed in Paris (see Paris Climate Treaty Signed by Obama NOT Binding on U.S.). However, like all good fascists, obeying our nation’s laws and Constitution won’t slow BHO down. He’ll figure out how to wave his magic Executive Orders wand and just “make it so.” That’s his plan. You may think we’ve gone mad, but we must point out, yet again, that IF the plan coming out of the Paris conference is actually implemented, it means the end of the fossil fuel industry. Period. We are NOT exaggerating this. That is their stated purpose–to end the world’s reliance on fossil energy. That’s how this agreement is being reported in mainstream media–have you bothered to read the reports? What’s even more insane is that yesterday we received a press release from the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP)–supposedly “the voice of the global upstream industry”–saying the IOGP “welcomes the historic COP21 agreement in Paris last week.” What? They “welcome” the end of fossil energy? Has everyone gone stark….raving….mad?….
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    New Dust Regulation Latest Obama Attempt to Regulate O&G

    The Obama Administration continues to push aggressive new regulations (i.e. unlegislated laws) to control the oil and gas industry in the United States. We’ve covered, extensively, the EPA’s egregious violations in this respect. Another agency that hassles the industry is OSHA–the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the U.S. Dept. of Labor. Obama’s OSHA weenies are set to push through new dust regulations that will affect the drilling industry. These new standards apply to silica (or sand) dust. Silica is used in fracking. Here’s the latest attack on the industry…
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    EPA’s Use of Social Media Propaganda to Support WOTUS was Illegal

    EPA-logo.jpgThe politicization of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)–a government agency that should be, by law, devoid of politics–has caught up with the Obama Administration. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the EPA, in using social media to urge the public to back Obama’s aggressive new redefinition for Waters of the United States (or WOTUS), was in fact illegal. We previously wrote about this draconian new “rule” ginned up by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers (see EPA Power Grab: Redefines Waters of the U.S. to Include Everything). The EPA broke the law by engaging in overt politicking–pushing “propaganda” (the word used by the GAO) to support the WOTUS rule. The GAO has just released a sweeping opinion (full copy below) that details chapter and verse just how the EPA broke the law with their propagandizing on social media. The question we have is this: If somebody broke the law, will somebody go to jail? Fat chance. None other than the New York Times was forced to cover the EPA propaganda story–something distasteful and a bit beneath the erudite reporters at the Times…
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    EPA’s McCarthy Brags Coal “No Longer Marketable” – Gunning for O&G

    Gina McCarthyEPA Administrator Gina McCarthy appears to be drunk on her own power. When quizzed about fossil fuel energy at the Paris Climate Conference, McCarthy, in answering questions about coal and its use in China and elsewhere, quipped, “Coal is no longer marketable.” She should know. She’s made it that way on purpose. You may think, “So what! It’s coal. It’s dirty. Natural gas is a better alternative.” Don’t think natural gas and oil aren’t next up on the hit list for McCarthy and the Obama gang: “McCarthy made it clear she is also working to limit methane emissions, particularly from oil and natural gas. Methane, the primary component in the product commonly known as natural gas, is 25 times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2.” These idiots will not stop until they have eliminated, BY FORCE, the use of fossil fuels for energy. That is the plan. They must be opposed, vigorously…
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    Paris Climate Treaty Signed by Obama NOT Binding on U.S.

    On Saturday, our illustrious president, Barack Hussein Obama, claims to have committed the United States into giving up its national sovereignty in the name of so-called man-made global warming. Obama and nearly every country of the world signed a climate agreement/treaty that commits the nations of the world to lower carbon dioxide emissions. You know, CO2–the stuff you exhale with every breath you take. Yeah, that stuff is supposedly warming up ole Mom Earth–catastrophically. Except it’s not. There is no empirical data that shows the earth is heating up–only doctored computer models. Satellite data shows the opposite–the average temp of Mom Earth is not heating up and hasn’t been for 18 years–how many times do we have to HOLLER this for it to get through? But facts aren’t what the Paris agreement is about. We can tell you what the agreement is about in two simple points: (1) transferring massive amounts of hard-earned wealth away from America to other countries, via a carbon tax; (2) banning the use of all fossil energy–asap. No, this is not hyperbole. It’s not overstating the case. This is EXACTLY what the Paris Climate Conference was all about…
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    FERC Confirms “Intervenors” Slowing Down Pipeline Approvals

    As we’ve previously warned, anti-fossil fuel kooks are being effective in slowing down new pipeline projects by using a sleazy strategy of individually filing as “intervenors” in pipeline applications. An intervenor is supposed to be someone with a legitimate interest in a project who wants to provide data, information, opinion–and also someone (typically a group) that should be kept informed each step of the way what is happening with a pipeline application. Intervenors are usually towns, utility companies, large businesses, etc. In a scam and abuse of the system, antis are attempting to get all of their crazy followers–including children–to register as intervenors (see Delaware Riverkeeper Scams FERC in Review of PennEast Pipeline and Coordinated Attack? MassPLAN Uses Riverkeeper Pipeline Delay Tactic). It overloads the FERC system and slows down the approval process. Want proof? It comes directly from the mouth of a sitting FERC commissioner, Tony Clark…
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    TGP Gets FERC Pushback on Need for 2 NED Compressor Stations in NY

    Kinder Morgan and their Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) subsidiary have gotten some pushback from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) over their planned Northeast Energy Direct pipeline plans in Schoharie County, NY. Kinder’s plans call for two different portions of the NED project–the Supply Path portion that comes from the gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania to Schoharie County, and the Market Path portion that goes from Schoharie County into Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and back into Mass. near Boston. The two different pipelines in Schoharie will use two different compressor stations under Kinder’s existing plan. FERC wants to know why they cant’ be combined into a single compressor station to reduce footprint. FERC is giving Kinder 20 days to respond…
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    Federal EPA’s New Ozone Standard: Air Not Cleaner, PA Jobs Killer

    In the name of protecting us, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues rogue actions in regulating the oil and gas industry–against the express dictates of the U.S. Constitution. The latest violation from the EPA is a new regulation lowering ozone levels. As David Williams from the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and a Pennsylvania native explains below, the “simple” act of lowering the ozone standard from 75 parts per BILLION to 70 ppb won’t do much at all to actually clean the air, but will directly result is lost jobs in Pennsylvania…
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    The Unsettled Issue of Home Rule in Ohio

    A law professor from Cleveland State University, writing a guest viewpoint in Crain’s Cleveland Business, does an excellent job in outlining the precarious and unsettled issue of so-called home rule in Ohio with respect to the right of local municipalities in layering on their own zoning regulations that control oil and gas drilling. In early 2015 the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that Munroe Falls could not add to or otherwise layer on their zoning regs that interfere with state regulations that govern oil and gas drilling (see OH Supreme Court Strikes Down Home Rule in Gas Drilling Case). As we later wrote, Beck Energy, the driller in the case, asked the Supreme Court to essentially strike down Munroe Falls’ entire zoning scheme as being unconstitutional. In November the Supremes declined to do that, leaving everyone scratching their collective heads (see OH Supreme Court Sends Mixed Signal on “Home Rule” Issue). Law prof Heidi Gorovitz Robertson takes it from there…
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    Wyoming Senator Exposes Obama Paris Climate Tax Plan

    U.S. Senator John Barrasso (Republican from Wyoming) is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy. Sen. Barrasso has done the country a huge favor by writing and releasing a new report titled: “Senate Outlook on United States International Strategy on Climate Change in Paris 2015” (full copy below). If we can sum up the report, it perfectly details how President Obama is attempting to hoodwink U.S. taxpayers into transferring their hard-earned money to foreign countries under the guise of global warming flummery. That is, according to Sen. Barrasso, President Obama intends to force American taxpayers to pay for past economic success through his contributions to the Green Climate Fund. It is an outrage and must opposed at every turn…
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    PennEast: The Long, Careful, Deliberate Road to Pipeline Approval

    The latest theme/meme being pedaled by groups like THE Delaware Riverkeeper (Maya van Rossum) and other anti-fossil fuel groups is that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is just a big ole rubber stamp for Big Oil and Big Gas. FERC, they say, never met a pipeline project they didn’t approve. FERC is in the back pocket of the fossil fuel industry. Yada yada yada. Some of the crazier of the crazies took to attending open FERC meetings in Washington, DC and disrupting those meetings (see FERC Clears the Room at DC HQ After Riff Raff Start Mouthing Off). Once they were banned from attending, they began to illegally block entrance to the building (see 24 Anti-Drilling Protesters Arrested by Homeland Security in DC). FERC has been made a kindergartenish bogyman by those who oppose pipelines. To counter some of the nonsense pedaled by these groups (and their willing accomplices in the media), PennEast Pipeline recently published an article to set the record straight. FERC doesn’t simply rubber stamp a pipeline application like PennEast’s–a pipeline proposed to run from Wilkes-Barre, PA to Trenton, NJ. PennEast faces a “gauntlet of approvals”–including 11 federal, state and local agencies that must approve thousands of pages of plans, much of it stringent safety requirements. Approving a pipeline is an intense, detailed, and LONG process in which no stone is left unturned. There is no rubber stamp except in the childish minds of irrational anti-fossil fuelers…
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    Bombshell Revelation: Cuomo was on Cusp of Lifting Frack Ban

    An interesting update on what is now ancient history in New York State with regard to Andrew Cuomo and his ban on fracking. According to secretly recorded wiretaps of conversations of the son of former NY Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Cuomo official made the rounds to several prominent Senate Republicans to ask if there would be any “blowback” when (not if) Cuomo lifted a ban on fracking. If true, the revelation is a bombshell–that Cuomo had intended to lift the moratorium but changed his mind at the last minute. The problem with the recorded conversations is that Skelos’ son Adam, in talking with three different lobbyists, attributes the conversation to different Cuomo Administration sources. That is, he changes his story, making his story less credible. Both father Dean and son Adam Skelos are on trial in Manhattan for corruption. Dean tried to help his son get work with sweetheart deals–something that happens every day in New York with both Republicans and Democrats. We’re not excusing corruption–just pointing out the context and circumstances…
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    PA DEP Fines Chesapeake $1.4M for 4-Year Old Landslide

    Make Him an Offer He Can't RefuseWe’ll let you decide whether the recent action by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is in line with being a good regulatory watchdog, or with being a mafia Don, using the power of the government to shake down a drilling company. On Sept. 15, 2011 as Chesapeake Energy was drilling the Stinger 8H well in Aleppo Township (Greene County), PA, in an area known for its landslides–they experienced (yes) a landslide. The landslide created sediment that plugged about one-fourth of a mile of seven “streams” so tiny they don’t have names–essentially drainage ditches. The seven drainage ditches, when they have water in them, flow into a very small creek called Harts Run. In return Harts Run, which crosses the border into West Virginia, eventually empties into a slightly bigger creek called Pennsylvania Fork Fish Creek, which eventually empties into Fish Creek (slightly bigger again), which eventually empties into the Ohio River–on the other side of WV where it borders with Ohio. There is zero chance any of the sediment made it beyond Harts Run, let alone all the way to the Ohio. But still, it’s not a good thing if you’re not “careful” to prevent what the Guvment believes you should be able to prevent. Chesapeake, since that time (over four years ago), has essentially fixed the problem–spending millions to do so. Apparently there’s a little bit of work left to do. The PA DEP comes along and yesterday announced that Chesapeake has agreed to pay the DEP a whopping $1.4 million fine for this four year-old accident, as well as do a bit of tidying up of the drainage ditches. Here’s the kicker–Chessy doesn’t even own that well any more…
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