Maryland Gets Ready to Frack! Gov O’Malley Files New Regulations
You’ll be hard pressed to find a reference to some of the most important news over the past four years when it comes to Maryland and fracking–but it happened last Friday when Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley filed a copy of draft regulations to be printed in the next edition of the Maryland Register. What does it mean? It means once the rule is published, after a certain period of time it goes into effect and the moratorium on shale drilling in the state will be lifted. This is truly momentous news and the only source talking about it (so far) is the odious Food & Water Watch…
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Looks like we owe an apology to Maryland. For years we’ve laughed and poked fun at Maryland and said it is the only state more dysfunctional than New York when it comes to allowing fracking. Yesterday, the special Maryland commission, set up 3 1/2 years ago by the outgoing, leadership-deficient Democrat Gov. Martin O’Malley, released it’s final report with recommendations for how fracking can go forward in the state (full copy below). Incoming Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has promised swift action on the fracking issue. Meanwhile, NY sits on its hands and does nothing. Mind you, the proposed Maryland regulations are so off-the-charts restrictive that even the nutty, far-left Chesapeake Climate Action Network is singing its praises (a big red flag). But hey, the ability to drill half a dozen wells in Maryland is better that what NY has! Let’s start with a summary of the new regulations put forward by the commission…
In our political coverage yesterday, we overlooked one very important race–perhaps the biggest shocker of all: For only the second time in the past 50+ years a Republican won the governorship in Maryland. Which is astounding when you consider Republican Larry Hogan (pictured on the left) is an older businessman who was outspent 4 times by his younger opponent, Anthony Brown (pictured on the right), who was/is the sitting Lt. Governor in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one. It was an utter repudiation of the last eight years of ever-higher taxes and a bungled roll-out of the Obamacare health exchange in Maryland. Oh, and did we mention that new incoming Gov. Hogan is pro-drilling?!…
It was only Wednesday night of this week (Oct. 29) at the Oil & Gas Awards dinner in Oklahoma City, OK that a fellow attendee (from Eagle Rock) asked me at dinner when Dominion would break ground on the Cove Point LNG plant. I told him I had not heard they’ve yet broken ground, but it should be any day now. Little did I know how prophetic those words would be! Yesterday Dominion announced that they have now 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…
Blow the horns…cheer and clap and celebrate. Let’s all do a happy dance! Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a final approval to Dominion for their liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Cove Point, Maryland. And that’s following anti-drillers behaving badly at a recent FERC meeting (see