Developer Eyes 1-GW Gas Plant, Data Centers for Old U.S. Steel Dump
A developer from Bucks County wants to build a 1-gigawatt (GW) natural gas-fired power plant and up to 28 data center buildings on a former U.S. Steel landfill in Elizabeth Township, Allegheny County. If built, the plant would burn somewhere around 150 million cubic feet of Marcellus/Utica gas every day. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news? It’s the same spot where Invenergy tried, and failed, to build a gas plant a decade ago. And the anti group that fought Invenergy spent this summer fighting EQT’s Heracles well pad down the road. Read More “Developer Eyes 1-GW Gas Plant, Data Centers for Old U.S. Steel Dump”
The Allegheny County Board of Health has fired the first shot in what looks like a slow-motion campaign to squeeze shale drilling out of the county. At its September meeting, the board voted unanimously to have the county health department look into whether Article 21, the county’s air pollution rulebook, should be rewritten to remove permitting exemptions that oil and gas operations now enjoy. Nothing changes yet. But the idea came straight out of the board’s own “Fracking Committee,” chaired by a writer for an anti-fracking group, and the folks at Food & Water Watch are already celebrating. Here’s what happened, what it could mean for drillers and landowners in Allegheny County, and why MDN isn’t buying the “it’s just a review” line. 
Four U.S. senators—two Republicans, two Democrats—released the final text last Wednesday of a major bipartisan permitting reform bill called the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026. It’s 417 pages long, and buried in it are some of the most pipeline-friendly provisions we’ve seen come out of Congress in years: a 150-day deadline to file lawsuits, a nine-month cap on state water permit reviews for interstate gas pipelines, and a free pass from NEPA review for compressor stations and looping built inside existing pipeline rights-of-way. The catch? It has to clear the Senate (60 votes) AND the House during the lame-duck session after the Nov. 3 elections. The clock is ticking. 
Back in 2022, then-Massachusetts Attorney General (now Governor) Maura Healey hit the campaign trail and bragged, “I stopped two gas pipelines from coming into this state” (see 
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore took the podium in Annapolis last week and did something that disappointed just about everybody: he did NOT slap a moratorium on new data centers. Instead, he signed an executive order (EO) that creates a new state task force to grade data center projects, a public “dashboard” to track them, and a ban on secret deals between state agencies and developers. He also wants lawmakers to kill a 2020 sales tax break for data centers. The antis at Food & Water Watch (FWW) are grumbling that it’s not enough. What they REALLY want to kill is the gas-fired power plants that would keep the lights on. 
Washington came to Erie last week with one message for 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use requests for responsible, safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the September 26th Pennsylvania Bulletin that the SRBC approved and/or renewed 35 general water use permits in August for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Clinton, Elk, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties. 
New Jersey regulators have fined the company building a giant AI data center in Vineland (Cumberland County, South Jersey) $1.07 million for installing and running 62 large natural gas-fired generators without air permits. The NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) calls it “by far the largest” enforcement action ever taken against a data center in the Garden State, and “possibly one of the largest such actions in the nation.” Our math: those 62 engines add up to nearly 123 megawatts (MW) of gas-fired power, running behind the meter at a site that is supposed to become a 300 MW data center serving Nebius and, through Nebius, Microsoft. The developer, DataOne, says the engines are temporary until Bloom Energy fuel cells (which also run on natural gas) take over, and it will now apply for permits. 
CNX Resources has decided to walk straight into the anti-drilling movement’s favorite scare story. Two weeks ago, the Pittsburgh driller announced it will bolt continuous, real-time radiation monitoring onto its Radical Transparency program — the first-in-the-nation public-private data deal it signed with PA Gov. Josh Shapiro and the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) in November 2023. Ambient gamma radiation detectors will run around the clock at unconventional well pads and certain produced water facilities, with the raw numbers going to CNX, DEP, and the public at the same time. CNX will also start publishing the radiation surveys it already runs on every truckload of waste leaving its sites. None of this is required by law. That’s the whole point. 
Remember that July morning when 4,000 megawatts (MW) of Northern Virginia data centers yanked themselves off the PJM grid because of a routine, properly cleared fault on a single transmission line (see 
Back in April, we told you the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had once again extended the three “temporary” air permits for Shell’s ethane cracker plant in Monaca (Beaver County) while the agency slogs through Shell’s full Title V permit application (see 
Chatham County, North Carolina’s Board of Commissioners last week unanimously passed a resolution opposing Enbridge Gas North Carolina’s proposed 28-mile natural gas pipeline from Siler City to Moncure. This isn’t a garden-variety “we don’t like it” resolution. It authorizes the county to actively fight the project by challenging environmental permits, teaming up with like-minded groups, working the media, organizing residents, and coaching landowners on how to resist condemnation. In other words, a county government just signed itself up as a Big Green activist group, with taxpayers picking up the tab. 
Boardwalk Pipelines’ Kosciusko Junction Pipeline Project, a 111-mile, 36-inch pipe across Mississippi that will carry Marcellus/Utica gas (and gas from other plays) to Southeast markets, now has all the federal permits it needs. FERC voted to approve the project at its Sept. 10 open meeting. On Sept. 23, the Federal Permitting Council announced that all federal permitting was finished. What’s next? Shovels. Boardwalk’s plan on file with FERC calls for construction to begin in December, about 10 weeks from now, with first gas flowing as early as April 2028. 
The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau (PFB) is one of the good guys. Probably 99% of the time, MDN is right there cheering PFB on — for private property rights, for sensible regulation, for keeping Harrisburg off the farmer’s back. But yesterday PFB released a 23-page paper making the case for a “temporary, limited moratorium” on large-scale data center development in Pennsylvania. This is the other 1%. We think PFB is wrong on this one, and we’ll tell you why. Politely. Friends are allowed to disagree.