Sunoco Reconciles Differences with Municipalities re Mariner East
Hats off to Sunoco Logistics. In order to complete the conversion of a decades-old pipeline already in the ground, the Mariner East 1 pipeline, into flowing natural gas liquids (propane and ethane) across the state to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia, the company needs to build or upgrade 31 pump and valve stations along the existing pipeline. A legal battle ensued with resistance from many of the local municipalities, largely ginned up by scare stories from the usual sources like the Clean Air Council, THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Mountain Watershed Association and their sycophantic buddies in mainstream media outlets like PBS’ StateImpact Pennsylvania. Sunoco felt it had no option but to try and get the pipeline declared a public utility and by extension, use eminent domain to avoid local zoning ordinances. There have been plenty of legal twists and turns along the way (see our list of stories here). Sunoco has worked out their differences with 22 of the 31 townships and they are now hammering out deals with the rest. So they’ve withdrawn their application with the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) to be exempted from local zoning ordinances–no eminent domain. Anti-drillers are feverishly trying to spin this as a loss for Sunoco Logistics–that the company has “backed down” and is beaten. What it is, is a major victory for Sunoco–the pipeline will be completed (very soon) and NGLs will flow all the way to Marcus Hook…
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West Virginia House Bill (HB) 2688 (see 
For months now, since the announcements of who then Gov.-elect Tom Wolf would appoint in his new administration to head up environmental efforts at both the Dept. of Environmental Protection (John Quigley) and the Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (Cindy Dunn), MDN has called attention to the fact that both of those individuals are problematic based on their previous roles in the anti-drilling organization PennFuture. A third member of the Wolf administration is John Hanger, a previous Secretary at the DEP and an early member (supposedly founder) of PennFuture. All three once worked for Democrat Gov. Ed “Fast Eddie” Rendell and now are at the top of the power structure in Harrisburg working for Wolf. MDN friend and ace analyst Tom Shepstone rips the mask off PennFuture and exposes it for what it is in a new article published on his always excellent 
PennFuture, the anti-drilling organization that has produced three top lieutenants in the PA Gov. Tom Wolf administration (see Ripping the Face off PennFuture & It’s Former Employees), frequently uses the court system in its attempt to slow or stop the Marcellus industry. One such case was a lawsuit PennFuture filed against Ultra Resources in 2011. Ultra had eight compressor stations scattered across Tioga and Potter counties–all of them many miles apart from each other. PennFuture tried to make the legal argument that all of the compressor stations should be combined together and treated as a single entity for the purposes of the federal Clean Air Act, which would have resulted in either very expensive equipment to reduce each facility’s nitrgen oxide (NOx) output, or perhaps closed some of them down to make the combined total come in under a certain threshold. PennFuture tried to say the eight facilities are “adjacent” for the purpose of the Clean Air Act. Ultra argued adjacent means “next to,” as in sharing a border. It all boils down to what the definition of adjacent means. Earlier this week U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania’s Middle District ruled in favor of Ultra and against PennFuture…