Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Regulation | Statewide VA | Virginia
Radicalized Antis Sue Va. Gov. Youngkin to Block Exit from RGGI
In 2021 as he was running for the office of Governor in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin pledged if he won, he would remove the state from the onerous carbon tax on coal- and gas-fired power plants called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Following his recent review of a new regulation to remove the state from RGGI, Youngkin is on the cusp of keeping his promise this year (see Virginia on Track to Leave RGGI Carbon Tax Scheme by Dec. 31). However, right on cue, Big Green bullies are back, suing Youngkin to block the state’s exit from this onerous tax. So we’re not out of the woods just yet.
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On Friday, the Biden Administration proposed a new rule to amend the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations. The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) proposed changes to NEPA that it says would speed up permitting for clean energy and other projects on federal land. Unfortunately, it does just the opposite. The new rule will slow down urgently needed development under the guise of “environmental justice.” This is an ongoing attempt by the Bidenistas to take a wrecking ball to the good work done during the Trump Administration to make it easier to build major infrastructure projects.
In July, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced that it had appointed a 17-member committee to figure out how to dole out $5 million to fund local community projects located near the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, PA, following a $10 million fine against the plant for violating air emissions standards (see 
Permitting in Pennsylvania, especially those overseen by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), has been broken for years. A Chapter 102 Erosion and Sedimentation permit sometimes takes two, three, even six to eight months for approval–instead of the law-mandated 14 days. It got so bad that in the fall of 2019, PA State Sen. Gene Yaw introduced a bill to allow third-party reviews of these permits (see 
Eversource wants to build the Western Massachusetts Natural Gas Reliability Project in Springfield, Massachusetts, to prevent winter gas outages. The purpose of the tiny 5.3-mile pipeline is to function as a backup–to prevent natural gas from being turned off for 58,000 Eversource customers (200,000 people) in the region. The existing pipeline in that area is 70 years old with no backup. If the existing, old pipeline has an issue and the gas gets turned off, that’s 200,000 people with no natural gas in the dead of a New England winter. Yet the radicalized Massachusetts Energy Secretary Rebecca Tepper (far-left Democrat) has told Eversource its draft environmental impact report for the tiny pipeline isn’t good enough for her. She wants Eversource to cut down more trees to create a supplemental report to answer her nit-picky questions.
In May, the Bidenistas at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a hellscape of new regulations (681 pages) aimed at forcing coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to close (see 
The West Virginia State Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2581 on the last day of the annual WV legislative session in April 2021. HB 2581 required the State Tax Commissioner to develop a revised methodology to value oil and natural gas properties for the purpose of assessing property taxes. The State Tax Department submitted an emergency rule in the summer of 2021 that was, quite frankly, a mess. In March 2022, the legislature passed, and Gov. Jim Justice signed into law, House Bill (HB) 4336, aimed at fixing the mess created by HB 2581 (see 
A Marcellus gas-fired power plant in Nicetown (a neighborhood in North Philadelphia) received a permit to build in 2017 (see 
Last week, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (liberal Democrat from West Virginia) hopped up on his high horse and held a hearing of the Senate committee he chairs, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to discuss the next steps for so-called permitting reform. It takes years to build a new pipeline, and sometimes decades to build a new electric power line. Solar and wind and hydro projects are as susceptible to long delays as fossil energy projects. Manchin (many people in the D.C. swamp) want to “fix” that problem.
Increasingly ours is a world run by computers. Even in-the-ground pipelines are monitored and controlled by computers. The ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline in 2021, a pipeline that flows a significant amount of refined products (gasoline and diesel fuel) from the Gulf Coast, where it’s refined, as far north as New Jersey, was a wake-up call for all pipelines. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) heard the call and responded. In July 2021, the TSA issued an initial “security directive” requiring pipelines, including natural gas pipelines, to do certain things to protect themselves and the public they serve (see 
The Bidenistas on Wednesday held a summit at The White House aimed at addressing the “planet-warming gas methane” and launched a new Cabinet-level task force (that we have dubbed the Climate Gestapo) dedicated to the issue. The bash-fossil energy confab curiously did not include ANY representatives from the sector that supposedly is causing all the trouble–oil and gas–which points out this wasn’t an actual effort to address the fugitive methane issue but instead was a political ploy aimed at fundraising for the Democrat Party.
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 