Lordstown $800M Gas-Powered Electric Plant Gets OH State Approval
In April 2014, MDN told you about a proposal from Clean Energy Future to build an $800 million electric generation plant in Lordstown (Trumbull County), OH. The plant will be fired by natural gas from the Utica and Marcellus (see Clean Energy Plans NatGas Electric Generation Plant in Lordstown). In May, Lordstown Village Council gave their blessing for the project (see Lordstown $800M Gas-Powered Electric Plant Gets Village Approval). Last week, the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) gave its stamp of approval on the project and, as far as we can tell, nothing else remains before the backhoes begin to work. Clean Energy Future plans to begin work this year and have the new electric plant operational by May 2018…
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Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) faces some stiff opposition from the anti-drilling, landed gentry class, along with opposition from the usual anti-fossil fuel nutters and even opposition from Obama-controlled agencies including the BLM, FWS and USFS (see our 
Last Thursday the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission issued its first order addressing the issue of forced pooling. The Commission upheld a forced pooling order against Ohio landowner Gary Teeter Trust (Ronald Roudeush is the trustee of the trust) by reaffirming that Ohio’s pooling and unitization provisions work to protect landowners–even those landowners like Roudeush who prefer not to be part of a drilling unit–by fairly compensating them. Rex Energy has leased land around the Teeter Trust (in Carroll County, OH) and sought to include 71 acres of the Teeter Trust property in a drilling unit, which Roudeush objected to and appealed. We have a copy of the decision below along with a further explanation of the case from the legal beagles at the Vorys law firm (the firm representing Rex Energy in the case)…
Over a year ago MDN broke the news that Moxie Energy was in the hunt to begin a third new Marcellus gas-powered electric plant project in Pennsylvania (see 
Good news for the citizens of Ohio. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a report on Ohio’s Class II Underground Injection Control (UIC) program–that is, wastewater injection wells–and found that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) regulatory program is of “good quality” and continues to provide strong protections for Ohio’s underground sources of drinking water (USDW). The federal EPA just gave Ohio a big, fat, sloppy kiss right on the mouth along with a big two thumbs up that the state is doing it right when it comes to wastewater injection wells…
On June 28, 2014 a fire at Statoil’s Eisenbarth eight-well pad in Monroe County, OH quickly spread and engulfed some 20 trucks on the pad site, along with other equipment, chemicals and supplies stored at the site. It was a devastating fire (see 
We previously told you about anti-fossil fuel groups in three Ohio counties–Athens, Fulton and Medina–who are being used by Big Green groups to attempt an illegal “community bill of rights” routine after the Ohio Supreme Court had already found local communities can’t ban fracking. They tried again and Ohio’s Secretary of State John Husted tossed the ballot measures (see 
On Tuesday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection held it’s first “listening session” to consider which creative ways they will cut the economic throat of the state by attempting to comply with nonsensical carbon standards set by our Dear Leader, Barack H. Obama, via his so-called Clean Power Plan (see 
A major defeat for Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling groups, including THE Delaware Riverkeeper, was just handed down by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in a Lycoming County zoning case. In Gorsline v. Board of Supervisors of Fairfield Township, anti-drilling neighbors, including Brian and Dawn Gorsline, Paul and Michele Batkowski and others (collectively “Gorsline”) sued to stop a conditional use permit granted by Fairfield Township to allow Inflection Energy to construct a well pad on the property of Donald and Eleanor Shaheen. The case was weak, but the lowest court in the PA court system–the Court of Common Pleas (i.e. county court)–said the ninny nanny neighbors had a right to strip away the Shaheen’s property rights to allow drilling on their own property. The PA Commonwealth Court obliterated the faulty reasoning of the lower court and has, significantly, redefined how courts should interpret the results of the Act 13 zoning lawsuit that allows local municipalities the right to restrict shale drilling. The Commonwealth Court decision (full copy below) has kicked the legal legs out from under those seeking to use an amicus brief filed by THE Delaware Riverkeeper in the Act 13 case…
Pennsylvania’s shale drilling industry is pushing back against the last minute changes made to PA’s oil and gas regulations commonly known as Article 78. In April the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) turned up the heat on newly-elected Gov. Tom Wolf and PennFuture Dept. of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley with a scorching hot letter (see 
In a shameless act of political pandering, the president of the Massachusetts State Senate, Stan Rosenberg (Democrat), ran his own version of a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) scoping hearing. Such hearings, while meant to elicit useful information about where a pipeline should, and should not, run, usually devolve into freak shows by anti-drilling zealots who parade and preen before the cameras and microphones–making fools of themselves. We’ve seen it many times before. So Rosenberg, apparently not satisfied that there’s not a FERC hearing every week where anti-drilling zealots in Mass. can gripe and moan and complain, set up his own faux session. He “listened” to some 60 people complain about the proposed Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct pipeline. Stan says he’s going to hand deliver transcriptions of the entire sordid affair to FERC, personally…
Ohio and 15 other states sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop implementation of Obama’s draconian coal and natural gas-killing Clean Power Plan while their larger lawsuit challenging the entire CPP winds its way through court (see 
Grant Township in Indiana County, PA has a problem: They’ve hired a potty mouth lawyer to represent them who has a HUGE conflict of interest. Grant’s town attorney is also the lawyer for (and executive director of) the litigious and extreme left-wing group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), a group committed to ending the use of fossil fuels. We’ve written plenty about the antics of the CELDF, including their lawsuit on behalf of an ecosystem (see