Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Regulation | Washington County
Cecil Twp Proposes Ban on New Shale Drilling via 2,500-Ft Setback
The Board of Supervisors for Cecil Township in Washington County, PA, has caved to pressure from radical leftists and is floating a plan to effectively ban all new shale drilling in the township by increasing setbacks from “protected structures” from 500 feet to 2,500 feet (a half a mile!). The supervisors will hold a special meeting tonight to discuss this lunacy. We strongly recommend you attend and voice your opposition.
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In January, Joementia announced he would “pause” any approvals for new LNG export plants (currently 17 requests in the pipeline) for at least one year while his people fart around pretending to figure out how to measure global warming as a new consideration for whether or not to approve such projects (see 
Venture Global is developing an LNG export facility in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, approximately 20 miles south of New Orleans. Phase One of the project is currently under construction. Venture Global recently asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to unload a tanker full of LNG to be used for testing the facility. The LNG (from Norway, because the Jones Act prohibits American LNG) will be used to cool down parts of the Plaquemines facility as part of the plant’s testing and commissioning process. Our question: Why is Venture Global allowed to do *anything* with the Plaquemines facility when it continues to screw its contracted customers at its Calcasieu Pass facility?
Hats off to Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw, who is floating yet another bill that will benefit the state, electric ratepayers, and the Marcellus industry — all at the same time. Yesterday, Yaw announced his intention to float a new bill that would create the Pennsylvania Baseload Energy Development Fund. What is it? It’s a fund that would set up a revolving loan program at a low interest rate to encourage private companies to build more baseload electric power generation in the state. That is, build more gas-fired power plants.
Yesterday, MDN brought you the news that two dozen states have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to place a temporary block on new EPA regulations that will put all coal plants out of business and block most (if not all) new gas-fired power plants from getting built (see 
EPA Administrator Michael Regan used a considerable amount of fossil energy and emitted tons of carbon dioxide to jet over to Dubai last December to participate in the COP28 confab, where he released a final rule that was “two years in the making” to force the U.S. oil and gas industry to cut methane emissions by using budget-busting new technologies and onerous (frequent) inspections (see 
The United States has 13 courts of appeals, also known as U.S. Courts of Appeals, that sit below the U.S. Supreme Court. These courts are organized into 12 regional circuits, each with a court of appeals, that cover the 94 federal judicial districts. One of the 13 courts — for the District of Columbia — has jurisdiction over cases involving federal agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The judges of the D.C. Circuit have recently delivered a flurry of decisions that appear contradictory concerning (overturning) FERC actions.
The Fairmont Brine Processing plant, located at 168 AFR Drive in Fairmont (Marion County), West Virginia, was constructed between 2009 and 2010 by AOP Clearwater LLC. The plant was acquired by Fairmont Brine Processing (FBP) in 2012. FBP began pre-treatment operations at the site in 2013 and fully operated the plant beginning fall of 2014. In May 2017, MDN reported that FBP was not paying some of its vendors (see 
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia (aka Traitor Joe) spoke to the Pittsburgh Business Times Wednesday afternoon about a bill he and Republican Sen. John Barrasso (from Wyoming) recently introduced, the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (see 
In 2019, the Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board waived a licensing requirement for a “temporary” LNG storage facility in Portsmouth to prevent another gas outage episode from happening again (see 
Five months ago, the New York Senate passed a bill already passed by the Assembly to ban the use of carbon dioxide in shale drilling (so-called “CO2 fracking”). Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, a reliable anti-fossil fueler, has still not signed the bill into law. What the heck is going on? A small group (seven, by our count) of environmentalist wackos turned up outside the main gate at the just-opened New York State Fair in Syracuse yesterday to hold signs and protest to remind Hochul she needs to do their bidding. 
Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authorization to place the final three liquefaction blocks (7-9) into service in November 2023 (see 
Yesterday, the Georgia Public Service Commission voted 5-0 to approve Georgia Power Co.’s plan to expand an existing power plant, called Plant Yates, by installing three new gas-fired units. Plant Yates is located on approximately 2,400 acres on the east bank of the Chattahoochee River in Coweta County, Georgia, southwest of Atlanta. Plant Yates originally operated seven coal-fired steam-generating units. Five of the units were retired in 2015 and the two largest units were converted from coal to natural gas and currently operate as a natural gas electric generation plant. 
We’re forced to report on a bill in New York State that is so stupid, it’s beyond words. We’ll do our best. The Democrats in the NY legislature passed a bill earlier this year that would create a “superfund” (big old pot of money) to be fed by slapping an illegal tax/fee on oil and gas corporations. The fee is to “pay back” the state for causing mythical global warming. (Create a mythical problem out of nothing, then create a faux cause of that problem — burning fossil fuels — in order to justify shaking down specific companies.) The NY bill would extract an astonishing $75 billion over the next 25 years — roughly $3 billion a year. It will never happen (never work) because O&G companies will fight it in court for years to come, but perhaps that is the point: to tie up O&G in court and encourage them to leave the state. You see, NY is closed for business. 
In May 2023, the Dept. of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued a proposed new rule that would slap onerous and very expensive new requirements on pretty much all natural gas pipelines in the country, including 2.7 million miles of gas transmission, distribution, and gathering pipelines; 400+ underground natural gas storage facilities; and 165 liquefied natural gas facilities (see