Jury Still Out on Debt Bill’s Ability to Deliver Permitting Reform
Will the debt ceiling bill, the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,” actually get passed? And, will it retain the sections that deal with completing the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and so-called permitting reform? That’s the gazillion-dollar question. We should know within the next day or so whether the bill, largely as written, will survive. Let’s assume, for the moment, that it does survive and gets adopted. We brought you the preliminary language of the 99-page bill yesterday (see Biden-McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal Includes Finishing MVP PDQ). Section 107 in the bill, called “Timely and Unified Federal Reviews,” provides for permitting reform that speeds up fossil energy and renewable energy projects. Here’s another gazillion-dollar question: Will Section 107 do what it advertises?
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Big news over the weekend. President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to a compromise deal to raise the debt ceiling–into the stratosphere. Part of the deal is a provision in the 99-page “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” called Section 324, which expedites the completion of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. MVP will flow 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus/Utica gas from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA. Needless to say, anti-fossil fuel nutters began howling at the moon and clawing at their faces upon hearing the MVP news.
Olympus Energy wants to drill six wells on a single pad in rural Elizabeth Township, a borough in Allegheny County on the east bank of the Monongahela River. The pad would sit about 2,400 feet (nearly half a mile) away from Elizabeth Forward High School. Some of the parents of students, and some of the administration, pushed back against Olympus’ drilling plan, using the kiddies as an excuse (see 
In September 2019, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave its blessing to Eagle LNG to build a small LNG export facility project at a site on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida (see 
After years of litigation, we finally have closure on what is and what is not considered “waters of the United States”–or WOTUS. Yesterday, SCOTUS ruled unanimously on WOTUS. The U.S. Supreme Court came down on the side of rationality and common sense. What a surprise, and a delight! However, we’re still not done with WOTUS. The Bidenistas (like the Obamadroids before them) have tried to rewrite and redefine WOTUS, and two court cases are still pending to deal with that. However, yesterday’s decision in a case called Sackett v. EPA goes a long way to overturning the Bidenistas’ new WOTUS rules.
From the beginning of the shale revolution in Pennsylvania, State Rep. Greg Vitali (from the Philadelphia area), the current House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee Chairman, has been a shill, a mouthpiece for the rabid anti-fossil fuel lobby. Vitali no longer bothers to hide his joined-at-the-hip connection to Big Green. On full display for everyone to see is a column running in the Philadelphia Inquirer, supposedly co-authored by Vitali and Charles McPhedran, senior attorney for the left-wing Earthjustice organization. The column attacks crypto mining (Bitcoin mining) in the state, claiming it’s not “regulated” enough–by which they mean it should be blocked. Stopped. Hamstrung. Crypto mining is another term for computer server farms that use enormous amounts of electricity. Sometimes the server farms are located at remote (stranded) gas well sites where they (gasp!) burn natural gas to generate electricity. Vitali and McPhedran want to “regulate” (i.e., stop) such server farms.
Josh Shapiro promised he was a different kind of Democrat–that he would work with Republicans on important issues like the environment if elected Governor of Pennsylvania. In the end, Shapiro has turned out to be a dud–a do-nothing governor. We warned you during the campaign that should Shapiro get elected, he would (eventually) embrace the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax, even though he made statements during the campaign that he doesn’t support it (see 
It’s one thing when rich, white billionaires fund Big Green groups that attack the fossil energy industry by abusing our court system. It’s quite another thing when taxpayer money is funneled to Big Green for the same thing! Yet that is what is now happening thanks to Joe Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which passed in Congress thanks to a single U.S. Senator–Joe Manchin. The Bidenistas at the EPA are skimming MILLIONS of dollars from the IRA, funneling it to anti-fossil fuel organizations that partner with the Beyond Petrochemicals effort created by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, which in turn assaults our fossil energy companies and our regulatory system with a blizzard of lawsuits and mass-brainwashing campaigns. OUR MONEY! Going to groups working against fossil energy. God deliver us from this madness!
In March, Shell said its Pennsylvania ethane cracker facility had not–using new, more accurate methods of measuring emissions–violated emissions limits at any point during the facility’s somewhat troubled startup (see 
Last Thursday, a Congressman from Pennsylvania, John Joyce (a physician from Altoona, PA), introduced House of Representatives Bill (HR) 3500, called the “Mountain Valley Pipeline Completion Act” (copy below). Which we find interesting because Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) does not touch PA, although a PA company, Equitrans, is building it. The 303-mile MVP pipeline starts in Wetzel County, WV, and runs through WV into Virginia, ending in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project has been stalled for years due to repeated lawsuits from foreign-funded Big Green groups. HR 3500, aimed at finishing MVP, was co-sponsored by U.S. Reps. Carol Miller (R-WV), Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), Mike Kelly (R-PA), Dan Meuser (R-PA), and Alex Mooney (R-WV). Here’s what the bill would do…
Yesterday the six sitting justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (currently one vacancy due to the death of Chief Justice Max Baer last fall) heard oral arguments in a case about the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)–a carbon tax scheme aimed at shutting down coal- and natural gas-fired power plants in the state. As is often the case, this Supreme Court case is about a technicality in the law. A lower court (PA Commonwealth Court) blocked the state’s entrance into RGGI last year until a lawsuit challenging PA’s participation could play out (see 
First, there was DUG, the 
Yesterday, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), an independent, nonpartisan group, named New York Governor Kathy Hochul (Democrat) its May 2023 “Porker of the Month” for signing a budget that bans gas stoves and furnaces in new residential buildings. Hochul signed a $229 billion behemoth budget bill that bans new construction from connecting to natural gas pipelines (outlawing new gas stoves and furnaces), as well as forces the shutdown of seven gas-fired peaker power plants (see