Maryland Democrat Lawmakers Continue to Torpedo Fracking
Maryland is a lot like New York–populated with lefty liberals who love to tell other people how to live their lives. Maryland went through a years-long process, just like New York, and eventually released what would likely be the strictest drilling regulations in the nation, in late 2014 (see Fracking in Maryland (!) in 2015? Quite Possibly). On his way out of office, then-Gov. Martin O’Malley (a Democrat) published the regs and prepared the state to frack (see Maryland Gets Ready to Frack! Gov O’Malley Files New Regulations). But then the Maryland legislature passed a temporary moratorium which the newly elected Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, allowed to become law (see Maryland’s Pusillanimous Gov Allows Frack Moratorium to Become Law). Hogan and the Maryland Dept. of the Environment (MDE) returned with more tweaks which tightened the proposed regs even more–to the point no one would want to drill and frack anyway. But still the crazies objected (see Maryland Holds Hearings on Fracking, Crazies Turn Out to Complain). Maryland legislators, almost all of them liberal Democrats, want to ensure there is never any fracking in Maryland. So they’ve they’ve placed a “temporary” hold on new regulations that allow fracking. The new General Assembly kicked off its 2017 session yesterday, and while the House and Senate are quibbling over what to call it (a ban or a moratorium), one thing is clear: Maryland Democrat legislators are out to torpedo fracking in Maryland…
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In July 2016 MDN told you about a smallish, but important pipeline project in the Delmarva Peninsula area, which includes most of Delaware and portions of Maryland and Virginia. Eastern Shore Natural Gas’ 2017 System Expansion project will bring new sources of natgas from an interconnection Eastern Shore has with the mighty TETCo (Texas Eastern Company) pipeline near Philadelphia (see 
In October 2014 Dominion announced they had officially broken ground on the Cove Point LNG export plant, a project that will inject between $3.4 and $3.8 billion in Calvert County, Maryland and pump upward of 1.8 billion cubic feet per day of cheap, abundant Marcellus and Utica Shale gas (see 
As MDN reported in September, the Maryland Dept. of the Environment (MDE) beat the Oct. 1 deadline to release onerous new fracking regulations (see 
We’ve long held that believing in man-made global warming is an act of irrational faith. In fact, it takes MORE faith to believe in global warming than it does to believe in God. We have long said that global warmists are, in fact, no different from religious zealots. We’re not comparing warmists to sane folks who believe in God, but those who take faith to an extreme–motivating them into rhetoric (and actions) that leave the realm of sanity. Such is it with some (not all) in the man-made global warming movement. Example: Some 40 far left, liberal “faith leaders” in Maryland this past weekend dispensed with delivering the Sunday sermon on God and Jesus, and instead elected to preach global warming hellfire and brimestone. That is, they have forsaken their first love, having been lured away by a false Gospel…
The Sierra Club, which may have been founded for good reasons, long ago left the realm of sanity. Sierra Clubbers, as we call them, now live in an alternative universe where clean-burning natural gas and all fossil fuels are from the devil himself. The Clubbers have tried to get multiple LNG (liquefied natural gas) export facilities blocked on the theory that if you cut off the demand you can cut off the supply (i.e. end fracking of new wells). Yeah, crazy. But that’s what they’re trying. Lately they’ve tried to attack and bully both the Dept. of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. With legions of lawyers, they file frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit, hoping if they throw enough legal (ahem) feces against the wall, some it will stick. So far it hasn’t. One of the facilities the Sierra Club continues to fight against is Cove Point LNG in Maryland. They filed an appeal of a Dept. of Energy approval to allow Cove Point to export LNG to non-free trade agreement countries–namely Japan and India. Yep, the Sierra Club doesn’t want us to help out Japan or India. They’d rather have us help Saudi Arabia and Qatar, apparently. After the appeal went nowhere, the Clubbers have no sued in the uber-liberal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Thing is, that very same court recently handed the Sierra Club a defeat in a similar case…
Dominion recently announced a new pipeline project called Eastern Market Access Project. The project will beef up two compressor stations in Virginia, build a new compressor station in Maryland, and add a couple of pipeline taps near Washington, D.C. The purpose of the $145 million project is to deliver more gas to Washington Gas, and to deliver gas to a new gas-fired electric power plant being built in Maryland. We suspect Marcellus/Utica gas will be the added gas flowing to both Washington Gas and the new electric plant in Maryland. [Note: A Dominion spokesman later confirmed to us that the gas will come from either the Marcellus or Utica plays.] You may recall that in May 2015 Washington Gas announced a plan to invest in Marcellus wells in Greene and Clearfield counties in PA (see 
Last week the Baltimore Sun ran an article (a portion of which we picked up) that said “sources” were telling the Sun that the Maryland Dept. of the Environment (MDE) would miss a deadline to submit revisions to revisions of revisions of fracking regulations that will allow the state to begin fracking on or about October 1, 2017 (see 
Yesterday MDN reported the story that Dominion Transmission has decided to lock out union members from working at their jobs in Dominion installations over a contract dispute (see 
Anti-drilling zealots attempting to stop the Cove Point, Maryland LNG (liquefied natural gas) from going online have failed in court, again. And they failed big time. MDN reported in April that a group of Big Green groups, including the Sierra Club, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the Patuxent Riverkeeper, EarthReports Inc. and Earthjustice colluded together to sue in federal appeals court to try and stop the project (see 
Boom. The trigger was pulled and the depressed mental patient–in this case the Friendsville Town Council, has committed fracking suicide. MDN told you in March that the unfriendly people of Friendsville, Maryland were contemplating fracking suicide (see 
As MDN reported two days ago, the Maryland Dept. of the Environment (MDE) held a public hearing in Baltimore to elicit feedback on changes to the state’s proposed fracking regulations–already the tightest, harshest such regulations in the country (see 