Regulation

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    WV Forced Pooling Bill Coming Around Again in 2016

    West Virginia landowners and mineral rights owners get prepared: the forced pooling issue is coming around again. After five years of trying, it seemed that a forced pooling bill was finally going to pass in West Virginia during the 2015 WV 60-day legislative session. But at the literal eleventh hour of the last day of the session, it failed (see The Real Story of Why Forced Pooling Bill Failed in WV). In April we told you that the forced pooling bill may get a vote this fall, although that never materialized (see WV Forced Pooling Bill HB 2688 May Get Another Vote This Fall). However, yesterday legislators got a look at a revised version of the bill that died earlier this year. The plan, as it currently stands, is to re-introduce it in January when the WV legislature meets for its annual 60-day session…
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    Time to Support EQT Mountain Valley & Equitrans Pipelines @ FERC

    It’s time for you, pro-drilling supporters, to weigh in and make comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on your support for two important pipeline projects: EQT’s Mountain Valley Pipeline and EQT’s Equitrans Expansion project. The Mountain Valley Pipeline project is a new $3.5 billion natural gas pipeline running 301 miles (down from 330 miles) from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA, connecting to the existing Equitrans pipeline along the way (see Mountain Valley Pipeline Files FERC Appl, Now Just Matter of Time). Mountain Valley will flow 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natgas and is projected to be built and in-service around the fourth quarter of 2018. The Equitrans Project will upgrade compressor stations, add approximately eight miles of pipeline connectors to upgrade capacity on the Equitrans Pipeline from southewestern PA into WV. The $100 million project, when completed, will expand capacity on the Equitrans pipeline by 600 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d). The Equitrans project is also due to be completed in 4Q18. Here’s the details for how you can show your support for these two important projects. But hurry, you only have until Nov. 26 to provide your comments/show support…
    Read More “Time to Support EQT Mountain Valley & Equitrans Pipelines @ FERC”

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    The Right Road to Clean Power: Free Market & NatGas

    Whenever government gets involved with choosing the form of energy you should use–they screw it up. The utopian Obama Admnistration believes the lie that government knows best–that they are the smartest people in the room and therefore should tell you that coal is evil, solar and wind are good, and they want to force you to change how you get your energy. One of their arguments is too much carbon in the atmosphere comes from burning coal–and natural gas. The Obama Administration is attending the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris hellbent on forcing Americans to give up national sovereignty in the name of mythical global warming. Thing is, the free market (capitalism) always produces a better result than the cockamamie theories of egg-headed liberals like Obama and his ilk. Carbon emissions in the United States, unlike other countries of the world, has gone DOWN, not up. And it’s gone down bigtime. America’s shrinking carbon footprint is thanks to a change to natural gas–not in so-called renewables. Want proof? We have it…
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    Anti Group CELDF Won’t Help Grant Twp Pay $1M Judgement

    Question: How will Grant Township (Indiana County, PA), a town with 741 people in it, pay a lawsuit it may lose awarding Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) $1 million? Going by the law of averages, less than half of the 741 people actually pay taxes (the other half are welfare slugs). So the question is, how can something like 200 families come up with enough money to pay such a large lawsuit? Answer: they can’t. The town goes bankrupt. That is the very real situation facing the residents of Grant Township. You may recall we’ve written about this before. Grant tried to block PGE from building a wastewater injection well in the township by passing an illegal law stirred up and proposed by the odious Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, or CELDF (see Fed Judge Overturns Grant Twp, PA Ban on Injection Wells). The town has now tried to reorganize in order to avoid the judge’s ruling (see Grant Twp, PA Reorganizes to Avoid a Court-Ordered Injection Well). PGE has sued the town claiming (truthfully) they’ve suffered at least $1 million in damages. That case goes to trial in March. If the town loses, the town pays. The cowardly CELDF has admitted they won’t contribute a penny toward the $1 million fine if the case goes against the town. Nice friends the people of Grant have made in the CELDF, wouldn’t you say?…
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    The Incredibly (Stupid) Hulk Praises Cuomo for Port Ambrose Veto

    Last Friday MDN told you that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had once again bowed to political pressure from his lunatic left and vetoed a proposed off-shore LNG import facility called Port Ambrose (see NY Gov. Cuomo Vetoes Port Ambrose LNG Import Terminal). Not having much to do between Avengers movies, Mark Ruffalo (who plays Bruce Banner/Incredible Hulk) occupies his time by making the rounds at small anti-fracking protest rallies where adoring fans as vapid as he is engage in sickening hero worship–believing a professional liar (i.e. actor) actually knows something about fracking and should be believed. Hearing of Cuomo’s veto of the Port Ambrose project–a project that would have imported non-fracked gas from Trinidad, potentially displacing fracked Marcellus gas–Ruffalo issued the following statement from his Americans Against Fracking organization praising Cuomo…
    Read More “The Incredibly (Stupid) Hulk Praises Cuomo for Port Ambrose Veto”

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    NY Gov. Cuomo Vetoes Port Ambrose LNG Import Terminal

    vetoA rather abrupt end for an issue that was just getting started. Liberty Natural Gas filed a plan back in 2010, prior to the Marcellus Shale revolution, to construct an off-shore LNG import (not export) facility off the coast of New York and New Jersey–in the ocean. A floating LNG facility called the Port Ambrose project. A pipeline would run from the off-shore terminal to Jones Beach, NY and from there would connect to a Transco pipeline lateral. The U.S. Coast Guard recently gave their blessing to the project (see Coast Guard Approves Port Ambrose LNG Import Terminal Near NYC/NJ). Liberty has tried to sell the project to New York and New Jersey anti-drilling nutters by saying the gas would come from Trinidad and wouldn’t be that nasty, fracked gas loaded with radon (see Liberty Says “Non-Fracked” Trinidad Gas Better than Marcellus Gas). Needless to say that was a whopping error on Liberty’s part–to smear the entire drilling industry in a vain attempt to garner favor with Kool Aid drinking global warmers, just to make a buck. Liberty’s “it’s not fracked gas” rationale didn’t stop the antis–they were just beginning to organize with protests and rallies–their version of a tailgate party at an NFL game. And now New York Gov. Cuomo has gone and ruined it for them. Cuomo, with the stroke of a pen, has vetoed the project. It’s dead. Done. Finished. Won’t happen…
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    Sunoco LP Fined $59K for Fixing Pipe Running Thru 7 Swamps

    Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don’t… Sunoco Logistics Partners needed to do maintenance (i.e. fix things) along the Mariner East 1 pipeline–an 80 year-old petroleum pipeline repurposed to flow natural gas liquids (NGLs). Some of the places where they need to fix it, the pipeline runs underground beneath a number of swamps–smelly, stagnant water where mosquitoes with West Nile virus breed. Today swamps are called “wetlands.” Go figure. Because Sunoco didn’t get a “Mother May I?” permit from the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) before fixing the pipeline in seven swamps, the DEP has fined the company $59,000. No doubt if Sunoco had waited for permits issued in triplicate and didn’t fix the pipeline, something would have spilled and there would have been an even bigger fine (and lawsuit) for that! A real no-win situation…
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    Boone Pickens Schools Obama on Keystone Decision, Energy “Plan”

    A little common sense from a man who has deep wells of common sense, T. Boone Pickens is a Texas oil man (pronounced “aall man” in a Texas accent) needs no introduction. In the pages of Forbes magazine, Boone Pickens takes President Obama to task for rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline–essentially calling him a non-leader and a coward. We have his column below, titled “President Obama, ‘No’ Is Not An Energy Plan.” The way we’ll introduce it is with a personal story that has nothing to do with nothing, except there’s a tie-in with Boone Pickens. When MDN editor Jim Willis was a (very) young man, he had the privilege and honor to first intern, and later be on staff in the Ronald Reagan White House. Jim was (perhaps still is) a hick from upstate New York. He always felt like Alice in Wonderland when arriving at work at the Old Executive Office Building (part of the White House complex) and seeing people walk by on the sidewalk that you see each night on the news. He could look out a window on the front lawn of the White House and watch the nightly news segments being taped! Very cool stuff for a young guy. Also very cool to see the President in person on rare occasions. The office in which Jim worked was Presidential Personnel–the employment agency for all of the thousands of positions appointed by the President throughout the federal government. In the office where Jim worked were three other people–all ladies. Two of them were the daughters of billionaires–Ross Perot’s daughter Nancy, and Boone Pickens’ daughter Liz…
    Read More “Boone Pickens Schools Obama on Keystone Decision, Energy “Plan””

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    OH Supreme Court Sends Mixed Signal on “Home Rule” Issue

    Earlier this year the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in a very important court case that the “city” (of 5,000 people) of Monroe Falls could not layer on its own oil and gas regulations over top of state regulations, effectively preventing Beck Energy from drilling on a site in the city already properly permitted (see OH Supreme Court Strikes Down Home Rule in Gas Drilling Case). It was assumed that case would provide precedence and settle the issue once and for all that towns can’t simply pass their own zoning regulations in an attempt to prevent oil and gas drilling. But it appears the mind of the Supremes is far from being settled. Beck Energy, following that case, pressed their advantage and asked the court for an order that directs Monroe Falls to not use zoning ordinances “to prohibit drilling for oil and gas in 99.06 percent of the city’s territory.” On Tuesday the Supreme Court dismissed the request without comment, leaving everyone to wonder what they really intend. It appears to not be a good sign for the drilling industry in Ohio…
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    3 Western PA Antis Weigh Appeal of Court Ruling in Zoning Case

    Three anti-drillers in Westmoreland County, PA are continuing their quest to deny their neighbors the right to allow natural gas drilling. You may recall one week ago we told you that a clear-thinking western PA county judge ruled that there are two sides to the Act 13 court case–local municipalities don’t always have to rule you *can’t* allow drilling in certain areas, sometimes the decision goes the other way *to* allow it (see PA County Court Rules Drilling OK in Ag/Residential District). In this particular case, three ladies–Dolores Frederick, Patricia Hagaman and Beverly Taylor–have their knickers in a twist that one of their neighbors, a farm owned by John and Anne Slike, wants to allow CNX Gas (i.e. CONSOL Energy) to drill on their property, some 1,200 feet away. The three ladies lost. But as with antis everywhere, the rule of law makes no difference. They (and their lawyer) are still agitating to try and prevent the Slikes from moving forward. They’re deciding whether or not to appeal the decision…
    Read More “3 Western PA Antis Weigh Appeal of Court Ruling in Zoning Case”

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    PA Gathering Pipeline Draft “Recommendations” from Wolf Task Force

    In May, Gov. Wolf announced the creation of a “Task Force on Pipeline Infrastructure Development” that will add an additional layer of interference by anti-drilling “environmental organizations” on where pipelines can and (preferably, from their viewpoint) can’t be laid (see Disaster on the Horizon: PA Gov Wolf Creates Pipeline Task Force). The Task Force was billed as an “unprecedented collaboration of stakeholders” from government, drillers, midstreamers, and anti-drillers (euphemistically referred to as environmentalists). Wolf and his Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary, John Quigley, appointed 48 members to the task force (see PA Gov Wolf Packs Pipeline Task Force with His Own Minions). The pipeline gang has now held four of six meetings (complete with opposition from Wolf’s kook left-wing fringe, see PA DEP Sec. Quigley Calls Pipeline Protesters “Badly Misinformed”), and some 12 working groups have (yes) done some work. Yesterday the Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force issued a draft report that they plan to officially submit to the governor and the legislature in February 2016. The (gulp) 335-page document contains 184 “recommendations.” Our concern is that recommendations have a way of becoming regulations in the hands of LibDems. Below is a copy of the full draft report along with the DEP press release announcing its release…
    Read More “PA Gathering Pipeline Draft “Recommendations” from Wolf Task Force”

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    Grant Twp, PA Reorganizes to Avoid a Court-Ordered Injection Well

    In October MDN told you about Grant Township in Indiana County, PA. The town had attempted to illegally block a permitted injection well from being drilled and used inside the town’s boundaries. The town folk have been whipped into an irrational frenzy by the radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). As usual, the CELDF-promoted so-called Community Bill of Rights failed in court, costing Grant Township taxpayers big bucks to defend (see Fed Judge Overturns Grant Twp, PA Ban on Injection Wells). People without jobs (like those infesting CELDF) have lots of time to be creative–so here’s the latest. They talked enough town folk into passing another/new plan on the November. The town voted to convert itself from being a PA Second Class Township form of organization to being PA Home Rule Charter form of organization–in an attempt to do an end-run around the judge’s ruling last month. Will it work? Probably not, but here we go again–another delay for Pennsylvania General Energy and their plan to drill an injection well. You know the old saying? Justice delayed is justice denied. When will the courts step in and stop this madness?…
    Read More “Grant Twp, PA Reorganizes to Avoid a Court-Ordered Injection Well”

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    Environmental “Justice” for Some, Not for All, Courtesy PA DEP

    If you live in Pennsylvania and you live in a community where at least 20% of the people are below the poverty line, or if the community is composed of at least 30% minorities, you now have an important new weapon to oppose shale drilling, courtesy the PennFuture Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), John Quigley. Apparently the laws and regulations on the books that apply to everyone else are not good enough for po’ folk or black folk and you need extra special laws and regulations not available to others–so Quigley has “reactivated” the Office of Environmental Justice at the DEP to give you a voice that apparently you had lost. You may recall Quigley recently began talking about “establishing” such a department–only to embarrassingly learn his agency already has such a department (see Quigley Faux Pas: DEP Already has Office of Environmental Justice). With the help of mainstream media, Quigley pivoted to cover his faux pas (see Quigley Changes Story, “Reactivating” Enviro Justice Office at DEP). “Environmental Justice” is now officially reactivated at the DEP, complete with a new hire, an African-American lawyer from (yes) Philadelphia, violating the current state ban on new hiring until a budget is in place. Oh, and if you’re not poor or a minority (i.e. you’re working class or white collar)? No special favoritism for you. You get ordinary/regular environmental “justice”…
    Read More “Environmental “Justice” for Some, Not for All, Courtesy PA DEP”

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    Youngstown Frack Ban Measure Voted Down 5th Time in a Row

    Five times the anti-drilling zealots of Youngstown have garnered enough signatures from dead folks and others to get a so-called Community Bill of Rights (i.e. ban fracking) measure on the ballot for a citywide vote. FIVE TIMES. And you know what? As of last Tuesday, the ballot measure has been voted down–FIVE TIMES. In a row. And yet the crazies keep getting bringing it back. If they get a single vote more than the previous vote, they herald it as “movement” in their direction. The crazies enlisted a few quite a few more crazies this time around. The vote was a lot closer than one would like: 5,683 (48.53%) voted for it, and 6,028 (51.47%) voted against it. Following the results, the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce issued the following statement…
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    NY AG Schneiderman Launches the Climate Witch Trials

    Once a witch-hunter catches the scent of a suspected witch–better watch out! It struck us as we read about the drummed up false charges New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is alleging against ExxonMobil–charges that the company has knowingly made false statements about their own complicity and contribution to mythical climate change–just how doomed we really are to repeat history. Schneiderman’s actions reminded us of something, and then we found it: “Rebecca Nurse, a sick and elderly woman of seventy-years old, stood for examination before the court on charges of practicing witchcraft on March 24, 1692. Judge John Hathorne, assisted by Judge Jonathan Corwin, conducted the examination in the meeting house of Salem Village before a crowd of people from Salem Village. The examination of “Goody Nurse” developed into a spectacle worthy of the attendance of so many onlookers, as a number of afflicted women launched into “grevious fitts” and openly denounced Rebecca Nurse as the cause of their torment. In the end, after one of the great confrontations between an accused and the infamous Judge Hathorne, the Judges found cause to bind Rebecca Nurse over for trial after which she was executed on Gallows Hill on July 19, 1692.” (University of Virginia). We’re facing the Salem Witch Trials all over again–some 323 years later. Apparently we didn’t learn anything the first time around. MDN calls Schneiderman’s current campaign the Climate Witch Trials–the prosecution and persecution of innocent companies based on a false belief that mankind causes global warming by burning fossil fuels. Now we learn Schneiderman may be gunning for more than just ExxonMobil…
    Read More “NY AG Schneiderman Launches the Climate Witch Trials”

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    Dictator-in-Chief B.H. Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline

    Dictators do as dictators want to do. Last week the U.S. Dictator (used to be called President), Barack Hussein Obama, decided to cave to his kook left enviro-Nazi fringe and rejected granting permits to build the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline–a pipeline that would flow oil from the tar sands of Canada all the way to the Gulf Coast for refining. It’s a huge blow to our relationship with our neighbors to the north and sets back U.S./Canadian relations by decades. It also prevents 20,000 jobs from being created. But dictators don’t care about any of those trifling details. They want what they want and you have to live with it–because you’re a serf. A dullard. You don’t know what kind of energy you should buy and use–so our Dear Leader will do it for you. No this isn’t a story about the Marcellus/Utica strictly speaking, but it is illustrative of what we are all up against–fossil fuel hysteria–the flames of which are fanned by people like Obama. Below is reaction from a number of senators, labor unions, the oil and gas industry and others to this travesty…
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