Earthworks Attacks PA DEP, Post-Gazette Gives Them Helpful Hand
The increasingly anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PPG) has once again written an article that is woefully lacking. MDN has written numerous times about the Earthworks, an virulent anti-drilling and anti-fossil fuel organization. Based in Washington, D.C., Earthworks hasn’t met a molecule of carbon they like–perhaps to the point of self-loathing the carbon in their own bodies (the human body is made up of 18.5% carbon). On the “heels” of a sham report by Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling auditor general, Eugene DePasquale (see Anti-Drilling PA Auditor General Criticizes DEP in “Report”), the PPG continues to slam the sterling job done by the men and women at the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) by quoting from a “study” issued last week by Earthworks…
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) ran an article in their Today in Energy online publication yesterday stating the Marcellus Shale region produced, for the first time ever, more than 15 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day (Bcf/d) in July. The Marcellus, located in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, now accounts for a staggering 40% all U.S. shale gas production. Compare that to just four short years ago, in 2010, when the Marcellus produced 2 Bcf/d. The Marcellus is, without a doubt, the most productive shale play for natural gas in the world…
Washington & Jefferson College, located in Washington, PA (Pittsburgh suburb) has a Center for Energy Policy & Management–which makes sense since Washington County, PA sits in the middle of the wet gas Marcellus drilling zone. W&J recently teamed up with the Washington, DC-based Environmental Law Institute (ELI) to study the “boom and bust” cycle that communities face with resource extraction like the Marcellus Shale. The thought was to produce a document–in this case a series of documents–that can guide local and state politicians as they plan for the future. How can, and even *can* a community avoid a “bust” after a huge boom? That’s what the documents aim to answer. The only problem is, the ELI seems to tilt anti-drilling, and the entire study was funded by Mamma Teresa Heinz-Kerry and her Heinz Endowments–a strongly anti-drilling organization. So you know where this is headed…
The Department of Energy (DOE) under the guidance of Secretary Ernest “Hair” Moniz, at the direction of the White House, has been on a fools errand to cut down on methane emissions, claiming such emissions are a “potent greenhouse gas” (although the earth isn’t actually warming). Still, when the boss says jump, you say, “How high?” So the DOE has been conducting methane round tables with various environmental and industry participants to try and figure out how they can regulate methane emissions to cut them down to size. The fifth and final round table was held and yesterday Sec. Moniz and the DOE issued several new initiatives to help cut down on methane emissions, part of the larger Obama Administration “Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions”…
Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling Democrat Auditor General Eugene DePasquale yesterday released a report (full copy below) criticizing the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) as being disorganized and ill-equipped to handle the rapid expansion of Marcellus Shale drilling in the state. What DePasquale forgot to mention in his report is his own whopping conflicts of interest. While he was a state legislator he pushed hard for so-called alternative energy programs to be funded by the state and as deputy secretary of the DEP he convinced a big wind farm operation to locate in the state. From his first day on the job, he was gunning for the Marcellus industry (see