WV Gov. Morrisey Signs Law to Store CO2 Under State-Owned Parks
Last Thursday, West Virginia Governor Pat Morrisey signed Senate Bill (SB) 627 into law. SB 627 removes the previous ban on leasing “pore spaces” under state-owned parks. However, the bill explicitly prohibits any surface disturbance on state park land for drilling or injection. All lease revenues generated must be used exclusively for improvements and maintenance at the location where the leased pore space is situated. Read More “WV Gov. Morrisey Signs Law to Store CO2 Under State-Owned Parks”
In January, MDN reported that the PJM Interconnection electrical grid operator, covering Pennsylvania (along with all or parts of 12 other states and the District of Columbia), had caved to the political demands of PA Gov. Josh Shapiro to artificially cap the prices of the next capacity auction scheduled for July 2025 (see 
In December 2022, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) approved permission for New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG) to build a pipeline regulator station in Holmdel, New Jersey. What does a regulator station do? It reduces pressure on the existing underground natural gas pipelines in the area, which run underneath Holmdel Township and throughout Monmouth County. Ultimately, a regulator station will ensure the reliability of the pipelines and the gas that flows in the area. The new station will replace a currently operating temporary regulator station. Yet the “leaders” of Holmdel voted in 2023 to appeal the BPU decision to court, allocating up to $20,000 of taxpayer money for legal fees, which turned out to be a fruitless attempt at overturning the BPU decision (see 
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out why people (and companies) choose to “bite the hand that feeds them.” Here’s a case in point. Last Friday, a group of electric and gas utilities urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to launch an inquiry to consider options for improving gas pipeline reliability. That is, utility companies, fed natural gas by pipeline companies, are asking FERC to tighten regulations on those pipeline companies in order to make it more expensive and harder to do their job. Why? 
Both conventional and unconventional (shale) drillers in Pennsylvania were required to submit a new annual report to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on December 10, 2023, detailing volatile organic compound (VOC) and methane emissions from their operations over the previous year. Shortly before that deadline, the DEP suspended the due date and set a new due date of June 1, 2024 (see 
Every three years, the Pennsylvania Dept of Environmental Protection (DEP) is required, by state law, to produce an update to the state’s so-called Climate Action Plan. The fact that they have such a plan boggles the mind—a plan to address global warming (the operative word being “global”) from one state. To be fair, many states and even large cities also have such plans. These plans are all arrogant nonsense. No entity, especially not a single state, can do a darned thing to affect the temperature of Mom Earth, but they pretend they can. And they use the existence of such plans as a manipulative political tool to force policy changes that inflict significant economic harm on their citizens, all in the name of saving the planet. The wackadoodle left has brainwashed our children into believing we’ll die if we don’t give up fossil fuel use. The DEP recently released its triennial “dump fossil fuels” update, and it’s as crazy as ever. 
Corporate welfare—the transfer of taxpayers’ money to businesses—is ugly, no matter if the money goes to large or small businesses. True to form, Pennsylvania’s Democrat Governor, Josh Shapiro, and his political operative at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), “Acting” Secretary Jessica Shirley, yesterday launched a program to try and spread nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer’s money from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (Biden’s Green New Scam) to businesses large and small in the Keystone State. They euphemistically call the program RISE PA (Reducing Industrial Sector Emissions in Pennsylvania). It should be called “Spread Taxpayer Dollars to Buy Votes” (STD BV). 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its completely dysfunctional and irresponsible cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use for responsible and safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the April 19 Pennsylvania Bulletin that the Executive Director of the SRBC gave his approval to or renewed 58 general water use permits in March for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Blair, Bradford, Clearfield, Lycoming, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties in Pennsylvania. 
This is TOO funny! Donald Trump so rattles the fascist climate left, they’re now imagining things that haven’t and won’t happen. Someone on the environmental left spread a rumor last week that the Trump administration was about to issue an executive order revoking the tax-exempt status of so-called “green” groups, those that employ lawfare to attack the U.S. and its energy industry. You know, groups like the Sierra Club, 350.org, Food & Water Watch, National Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, and others. They’re jumpy, like they’re on drugs. (Well, some of them probably are.) The rumor spread like wildfire among the guilt-ridden groups that Trump was coming for their tax-exempt status. And then the White House said nope, it’s all just a fantasy of the jumpy left. 
In January, MDN reported that the PJM Interconnection electrical grid operator, covering Pennsylvania (along with all or parts of 12 other states and the District of Columbia), had caved to the political demands of PA Gov. Josh Shapiro to artificially cap the prices of the next capacity auction scheduled for July 2025 (see 
Reuters is reporting that the European Union (we call them ‘Euro weenies’) is looking at ways to make it easier for U.S. LNG exports to comply with its onerous new methane emissions regulations. The EU is earnestly trying to avoid a trade war with President Trump, according to sources speaking to Reuters. What’s happening is that Europe is trying to figure out how it can not block U.S. LNG based on its cockamamie new regulations and save face at the same time. 
