PA State Sen. Yaw Proposes Creation of Independent Energy Office
Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw (Republican from Lycoming County), the Majority Chair of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, announced last week that he intends to introduce legislation to establish an Independent Energy Office (IEO). The IEO would be established along the same lines as state’s successful Independent Fiscal Office (IFO). The IEO would, like the IFO, be a neutral agency that does not support or oppose the policies it analyzes.
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The Bidenistas have taken notice that shale companies are beginning to use various private NGOs to certify the production of natural gas as responsible. There are currently four such independent certification authorities. 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 what is not “green enough” for them. So the Bidenistas are “holding talks” to try and establish a national (international) standard. Are they talking to the existing four certification authorities? No. They’re talking with “global energy companies and foreign officials in an effort to set standards for certified natural gas.” Yeah, the Bidenistas are talking with our competitors and our enemies to establish a new standard. Typical.
West Virginia Senate Bill (SB) 188, the Grid Stabilization and Security Act, is aimed at making WV more competitive with its neighbors–Pennsylvania and Ohio–with respect to siting more gas-fired power plants in the state. While there was a lot of early momentum to pass the bill, it came to a screeching halt early last week in the House of Delegates (see 
Will the third time be the charm? Probably not. On Wednesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) issued a 297-page biological opinion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s (MVP) potential impact on threatened and endangered species if the 94% complete pipeline is allowed to finish. We have a full copy of the opinion below. It finds that completing the MVP project will NOT harm protected species. Two other times USFWS issued this same report, and two times the radical judges of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (three Democrats) have overturned the opinion and blocked a permit needed to allow MVP to finish. Will it happen again?
In 2022, 897 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of interstate natural gas pipeline capacity was added from five projects to the interstate gas pipeline system, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). That is the least amount of capacity added to the interstate natural gas pipeline system since the EIA began data collection in 1995. This ignominious achievement happened under the Bidenistas, while Richard “Dick” Glick was Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
That was fast. Yesterday we told you that newly-elected Maryland Gov. Wes Moore had nominated someone who actually knows something about the energy industry, from the American Gas Association, to be a member of the Maryland Public Service Commission (see 
Isn’t it typical for Democrats to try and use a crisis that has nothing whatsoever to do with shale and natural gas to block shale and natural gas? Seven members of Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation, every single one of them a Democrat, sent a letter (copy below) to another Democrat, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (an incompetent nincompoop), asking him to permanently delete a rule adopted during the Trump administration that allows LNG to be safely transported by special rail cars. The reason cited for banning LNG by rail? The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio–an event that has nothing whatsoever to do with shale energy.
In April 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to review Section 401 of the Clean Water Act–the section that grants states (and tribes) the right to have a say in pipeline projects (see 
Last summer then-Gov. Tom Wolf instructed the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to conduct a comprehensive review of conventional oil and gas driller compliance with an eye on locating enough dirt to justify creating onerous new regulations for the industry (see 
A little over a month ago, MDN brought you the good news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved the Williams Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project, a plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see