Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Carbon Capture | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA
Antis Object to PA DEP Oversight of Carbon Capture Injection Wells
We have new evidence that so-called environmental groups, including a long list of anti-fracking groups in Pennsylvania, don’t really care about the environmental at all. They only care about the power to dictate to you what energy sources you can and cannot use–as a way of controlling you. Great strides have been made in capturing and sequestering (storing underground) carbon dioxide (CO2). These so-called environmental groups all say that CO2 is killing Mom Earth. Yet when real science is employed to control CO2 (to sequester it), they attempt to block it. Why is that?
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Leave it to liberal Democrats to hype an issue that isn’t even an issue to try and scare folks for political gain. LibDems have introduced a bill in the Ohio House that would prohibit fracking for oil and gas underneath Lake Erie. The leftists of Lake Erie Waterkeeper appear to be behind the measure. When was the last time you heard about any drillers salivating over drilling and fracking under Lake Erie? That’s right. NEVER. And yet the left wants to plant the seed that drillers now have their sights set on fracking Lake Erie.
It’s a miracle, A true blue spectacle, A miracle come true… (Lyrics from Barry Manilow’s tune, It’s a Miracle) In a 3-2 vote taken in December 2021, the Virginia State Water Control Board granted a permit (under the Clean Water Act) for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to cross about 150 streams and wetlands in Southwest Virginia (see 
The mighty Shell ethane cracker has had “issues” getting and staying fully up to speed. Since it officially went online last November, Shell has received three separate notices of violation (NOVs) for exceeding allowable air pollution limits, largely related to repeated flaring episodes (see 
No one with a brain would deny government spending in Washington, D.C., is completely out of control. The Biden administration is spending more money than any previous administration in history. Biden’s incompetent Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, can’t even keep track of all the spending and earlier this year (out of the blue) she announced the country has hit its debt limit and that the limit needs to be raised–so that we can spend even more! Republicans are getting smarter. Speaker McCarthy is playing political hardball with sleepy Joe, telling Biden if he wants the debt limit raised, he’s going to have to pay. The price for a higher debt limit (or risk a catastrophic default) will be to adopt pipeline permitting reform and to finish the Mountain Valley Pipeline project.
As we reported yesterday, New York legislators are pushing back against a truly crazy plan by NY Gov. Kathy Hochul to ban natural gas (and fuel oil) in all homes and businesses across the Empire State (see 
There is a revolving door in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, between PennFuture and Democrat governors. Pat McDonnell, the former Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), charged with overseeing shale drilling in the state, was a closet radical working against the shale industry in the Gov. Tom Wolf administration. How do we know? As soon as he left the DEP last year, McDonnell became president of the uber-left, anti-shale PennFuture organization (see 
We live and work in Upstate New York State (sad to say). It is our birthplace, and our families live here. However, New York has fallen. We are overwhelmed with Democrat socialists who don’t care about traditional American values like freedom. The best illustration of this is our newly-elected Governor, Kathy Hochul. She not only wants to ban natural gas hookups for new homes and businesses across the entire state, she wants to force all EXISTING homes and businesses to give up using natural gas (and fuel oil, and coal, and wood) as well. It’s certifiably insane. Yet that’s how the Democrat socialist mind works. Fortunately, there are at least a few Dems left willing to push back on some of this insanity. Where do plans stand to ban natgas in the Empire State?
We continue to be majorly disappointed with the new “Acting” Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, Rich Negrin. Last Friday, we told you that Negrin is hewing to the far-left, promoting the concept that all wells and pipelines in poor communities and communities of color are automatically racist (see 
So-called “environmental justice” is a buzzword used by the left over the past decade or so. It is a euphemism, a code word for “any well pad or pipeline or any kind of oil and gas infrastructure that gets built anywhere near a community with a large population of poor folks or black/brown folks is automatically considered racist.” Environmental justice is the antithesis of American freedom and the American sense of equal justice for all under our laws. The left screams “racist” when they can’t compete on the basis of ideas, a tactic they use to shut down arguments. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania’s new “Acting” Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, Rich Negrin, spouted environmental justice nonsense yesterday at a House hearing on the budget.
With the rapid increase in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects around the country, including right here in the Marcellus/Utica region, a key issue has arisen. Where does one store (sequester) all that carbon dioxide (CO2)? The answer is underground in a Class VI injection well. Class VI wells are a relatively new classification for injection wells, created by the federal EPA in 2010. Who regulates Class VI wells is a current flashpoint of controversy. Right now, the EPA is the primary regulator (has “primacy”) in regulating Class VI wells in all but two states (neither of which is a Marcellus/Utica state).
Newly-elected Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro nominated Rich Negrin, a former top official (and Deputy Mayor) of Philadelphia, to become the next Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (see 
