PA DEP Squeezes Another $660,000 from ME2 Pipe for “Violations”
The problem with the pay-for-protection scam is that it never stops. A mobster comes calling on a business, and for a “small” and regular fee, the mobster will guarantee nothing “happens” to the business. “Just think of it as insurance.” It’s a shakedown–a scam. And over the years, the price keeps going up. What if the mobster is a government agency, like the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP)? The DEP keeps shaking down Energy Transfer and its Sunoco Pipeline subsidiary over the construction and operation of the Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline. Over the years, the DEP has fined ET/Sunoco over $30 MILLION for so-called penalties related to building ME2. [And another $30.6M related to the Revolution Pipeline explosion.] Yesterday, the DEP announced ANOTHER $660,000 in “penalties” related to building ME2. When will it end?
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Liberal Democrats never give up on their poor ideas–even when they are rejected year after year. In 2021, the Dems who controlled the U.S. House of Representatives with an iron fist under der Führer Pelosi introduced five bills, including the FRAC Act, aimed at destroying the oil and gas industry in this country (see 
The Bidenistas noticed that shale companies are beginning to use various private NGOs to certify the production of natural gas as responsible. The effort is picking up steam, and the Bidenistas don’t like the fact they are not in control. They can’t call the shots and determine what is and is not “green enough” for them. So in March, the Bidenistas began “holding talks” to try and establish a national/international standard (see 
A group of Pennsylvania State Senators are (once again) trying to expand the swampy bureaucracy of the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). A group of six Democrat state senators issued a co-sponsorship memorandum last Thursday to say they want to expand the DEP’s power to reject “facilities such as incinerators, landfills, and sewage plants” based on the premise that such facilities are typically built in communities where there are minorities or poor people–and they are just too poor (or too dumb) to “fight back” against such projects. That is, the DEP can reject anything it wants for “environmental justice” reasons. The very premise of the bill is, itself, racist!
In January 2016, Invenergy announced its intention to build a natural gas-powered electric plant in Elizabeth Township, in Allegheny County, PA (see 
The Bidenistas are coming for ALL of your household appliances. It began with natural gas stoves. It moved to dishwashers. Now its new regulations for water heaters (both electric and gas water heaters). And they’re not done. The Bidenistas are moving forward with rules impacting dozens more appliances, including consumer furnaces, pool pumps, battery chargers, ceiling fans, and dehumidifiers. Let’s not forget coffee pots! These people are out of control.
The Weymouth compressor station, online and operating safely since early 2021, was the final piece of the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project that was years in the making. Built by Enbridge, the Weymouth compressor can pump an extra 132,705 Dt/d (132.7 million cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas through Enbridge’s Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline from receipt points in New York and New Jersey. The gas is pushed through the mainline all the way to Maine and (potentially) Nova Scotia, Canada. The radical environmental left (which hates all fossil fuels) has been fighting this compressor station for years. On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit) dismissed two remaining petitions against the project.
It is so maddening and frustrating to live and (if you are a business), operate in New York State. We have one-party rule: The radical leftwing of the Democrat Party. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (a lecher and liar) and current Gov. Kathy Hochul (Lt. Governor under Cuomo) are completely controlled by the radical environmental movement. Cuomo/Hochul’s latest target is to block the expansion of two compressor stations along the Iroquois Gas Transmission pipeline, preventing an additional 125 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) of Marcellus/Utica gas flowing into New York City and New England.
On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (liberal Democrat from West Virginia) filed an amicus curiae “friend of the court” brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to show his support for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in its fight against the actions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (see 
In January, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see 
This story reinforces what we have said FOR YEARS: The radicalized environmental left will NEVER be satisfied that fossil energy is acceptable, no matter what we do to ensure it’s “clean and green.” As we have said so many times before, the environmental left is unreasonable–not able to be reasoned with. Irrational. Haters. We have new evidence for our claims. There are four major certification schemes to ensure natural gas produced in the U.S. is “responsible”–or clean and green. In March, the Bidenistas began to sniff around the certification authorities to grab that authority for themselves. A cabal of some 150 “environmental” (leftist Communist) groups are telling the Bidenistas not to bother. Gas will never be acceptable.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin is a typical politician. That is, he lies. His latest whopper concerns a measure he advanced to “prohibit” the Biden administration from “banning gas stoves,” which he touted in a recent video. However, just two years ago, Manchin opposed an amendment from Wyoming Republican senator John Barrasso that prohibited federal funds from being used to ban natural gas in new construction, saying the measure wasn’t necessary and that such bans would never happen. Joe-then and Joe-now appear to be two different people. Funny how Joe gets more “conservative” the closer he gets to an election year.
As we point out in another story today about Olympus Energy selling its “responsible gas” via a deal with Tenaska, what the left means by ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) and what the shale industry means by ESG, are two different things. When companies like BlackRock talk about forcing the companies they invest in to toe the line with respect to ESG, it means forcing those companies to divest from fossil energy. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing back hard against investor ESG nonsense because it threatens the retirement funds of this country’s massive middle class.
The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) is warning of a shortfall in electric generating capacity for New York City in 2025 when peaker plants–on-demand electric-generating plants that use fossil energy–are due to retire. Each quarter NYISO issues a short-term assessment of reliability. In April, the NYISO quarterly report warned about coming blackouts in 2025 (see