New 3.5 Mile Pipeline Project to Drill Under the Potomac River
Columbia Pipeline, now owned by TransCanada, recently (in March) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build a 3.5 mile, 8-inch pipeline that will carry natural gas from Pennsylvania to connect the Mountaineer Gas system in West Virginia with the Columbia Gas Pipeline in Pennsylvania. The purpose of the Eastern Panhandle Expansion project is to deliver natural gas via local distribution channels to a new industrial facility in Berkeley County, WV (scheduled to open in Fall 2017), and to provide gas to other local businesses and residents in the Tri-State area. Most of the pipeline crosses through a tiny sliver of Washington County, Maryland. The main issue with the project is that the pipeline will be drilled underneath the Potomac River, which serves as the border between WV and MD. That has antis in an uproar. The good news is that FERC has agreed to prepare an environmental assessment (EA) for the project. That is, this is now a real project with a high degree of likelihood it will get built…
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Since early 2013 all of the LNG export capacity at the coming Cove Point LNG facility (on the shore of Maryland) has been spoken for–by India and Japan (see 
Metaphorically speaking–Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s finger was on the trigger of a loaded pistol, pointed at the head of the once-great State of Maryland. And now, Hogan pulled the trigger, assassinating any hope of new jobs, new wealth for some of the state’s poorest people (farmers and landowners in western Maryland), and new tax revenue for local communities. BANG. Done. Killed. Death. Thanks Larry, you da man. We previously reported that the Maryland House had loaded the chamber, and then the Senate had cocked the gun and put it in Hogan’s hand (see 
The same old (very small) cast of environmental radicals is claiming victory in Maryland over the recently passed bill to ban fracking statewide–a bill that now sits on traitor Gov. Larry Hogan’s desk (he’s promised to sign it). Radicals from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (and Food & Water Watch, and the Sierra Club, et al), who are waging a holy war against fossil fuels, say this momentous occasion is evidence of new “bipartisan” support sweeping the nation–that Maryland’s vote has “national implications.” It’s nothing of the sort. Anti-fossil fuel nutters are still by and large Democrats (and Socialists) and confined to a few far-left states (Maryland, New York, Vermont). Larry Hogan is an anomaly–a Republican who ran on a platform of support for fracking who suddenly, without warning and for inexplicable reasons, flipped and promised to sign a ban bill should one be proffered. We wonder, who paid who? There is corruption at work in this situation, of that we have no doubt. All of the so-called “leaders” of the ban frack movement in the Maryland legislature come from either the Washington, D.C. suburbs, or the Baltimore area. They are located on the opposite side of the state from where fracking would, theoretically, take place. These enviro radicals have hijacked the property rights of landowners in Allegany County and Garrett County, the only two Maryland counties with commercially viable shale deposits that could be fracked. It will be a sad day when Hogan turns his back on the people of Maryland and signs the law…
There were early signs that Maryland’s newly elected “Republican” governor was weak on the subject of fracking, as we pointed out in 2015 when we said that then-new Gov. Larry Hogan, who was elected on a platform of supporting shale drilling, had decided to let a two-year moratorium on shale drilling become law without his signature (see 
There is a concerted effort by a small group of fossil fuel haters to strip away the Constitutional property rights of all Marylanders by passing a permanent ban on fracking in the state. They’ve already convinced the Maryland House to pass a ban bill. The haters spew outright lies about fracking and attract local media outlets with gullible reporters who never question their outlandish claims. While they make false claims about fracking, that it pollutes water, air and in general kills everything, make no mistake–the root of their objection is that fracking extracts fossil fuels which, in the religion of environmental extremists, causes man-made global warming. That is what animates them. Unfortunately, as we have previously observed, Christian pastors from liberal denominations are claiming that the issue of fracking is a “moral” issue, a “good vs. evil” conflict (see 
Maryland’s heavily Democrat legislature is doing its best to slap a permanent ban on fracking in the state (see 
Fossil fuel haters did their best to stop Dominion’s Cove Point LNG export facility in Lusby, Maryland. They sued (see 
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 
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…