Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY
3 Mo. After NY Legislature Passed CO2 Frack Ban, Gov Has Not Signed
One month ago, MDN told you that although the New York Senate had passed a bill already passed by the Assembly to ban the use of carbon dioxide in shale drilling (so-called “CO2 fracking”), Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, a reliable anti-fossil fueler, had still not signed the bill into law (see 2 Mo. After NY Legislature Passed CO2 Frack Ban, Gov Hasn’t Signed). It’s now three months after the bill passed and the annual legislative session closed on June 6th — and the frack ban bill STILL has not been signed by Hochul. Why?
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The grid operator overseeing New York State is warning that the Democrats’ green energy agenda is pushing the grid toward blackouts. The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), which oversees and manages the state’s power grid, published its 2024 Power Trends report last week, assessing the outlook for energy supply and demand in the region over the next several years. The report warns that the electrification agenda pursued by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and her fellow Democrats is pushing the state’s grid toward conditions for blackouts as soon as this summer.
Here’s a truism you can take to the bank. Anti-fossil fuel nutters need (crave) a public forum where they can prance around like peacocks making a spectacle of themselves. Deny them that forum, and they get grumpy — fast. Such was the case at an information session held Tuesday at the Athens (NY) Elementary School. A company hired to work on upgrading a compressor station in Athens for the Iroquois Gas Transmission pipeline tried to share important information about the project. However, protesters made it impossible, and the session was dismissed early due to the bad behavior of the petulant protesters.
Isn’t this interesting? Two days ago, MDN published a post pointing out that a bill passed by both houses of the New York State legislature to ban so-called carbon dioxide (CO2) fracking had still not been signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul (see 
The odious and disgusting Food & Water Watch (FWW) organization (anti-fossil fuel fanatics) has taken point on the left’s effort to block Iroquois Gas Transmission’s plan to upgrade compressor stations in the Empire State. Iroquois’ Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project increases horsepower at three compression stations — two in New York and one in Connecticut — by an extra 125 MMcf/d, flowing more Marcellus/Utica gas into New York City and New England. Less than two weeks ago, FWW announced it had recruited 5,000 drones (no doubt paying some of them) to write comments against ExC in an effort to give New York’s weak Governor, Kathy Hochul, political cover to reject ExC (see 
We’re sad but not surprised. The last time we reported on Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) Project slated for New York was last June when Williams asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a time extension to build it (see 
As we told you earlier this month, the radicals who run the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) are gearing up to block the Iroquois Gas Transmission system from completing its Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project (see 
A local community receiving a federal grant of $14 million (arranged by a local Congressman) to improve natural gas infrastructure, like replacing worn-out gas pipes, is a fairly common occurrence across most of the country. But it’s not a common occurrence when the community receiving the grant and doing the work is located in New York State — a state that is utterly hostile to even a single square inch of new natural gas infrastructure. That’s what makes this story so unusual, so “man-bites-dog” in nature. Bath and Woodhull (both in Steuben County, NY) are receiving a combined $14 million to replace nearly 18 miles of natural gas pipelines.
Here’s a story that caught our attention. Empire Energy, which drills for oil and gas in Australia’s Beetaloo/McArthur basin, owns producing oil and gas assets in New York State and Pennsylvania, which cover more than 270,000 net acres. Empire’s U.S. assets have output totaling some 4.5 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas plus small amounts of associated liquids from approximately 2,400 conventional wells. Empire is selling their U.S. assets for $9.1 million to a privately owned conventional producer — PPP Future Development. The intriguing part of this story is that Empire also owns drilling rights in the Marcellus and Utica shale layers underlying the conventional wells in New York State.
The radicals who run the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) are gearing up to block the Iroquois Gas Transmission system from completing its Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project. ExC increases horsepower at three compression stations — two in New York and one in Connecticut — by an extra 125 MMcf/d, flowing more Marcellus/Utica gas into New York City and New England (see 
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) and its pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline have worked on a plan to build the Northern Access Pipeline since 2016. Northern Access is a 97-mile project from McKean County in Pennsylvania into and through Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Erie counties in New York that will flow Marcellus gas into New York State. The project was repeatedly delayed by the radicals of the Andrew Cuomo (now Kathy Hochul) administrations in NY. NFG still wants to build the project but needs more time. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave NFG an extra 35 months to get the project done in a decision in June 2022. The Sierra Club challenged FERC’s time extension. On Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit) rejected the Clubbers and said FERC properly extended the time to build the project.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is shopping for a public relations firm that can help the agency convince gullible New Yorkers that they’re better off paying more money for unreliable renewable energy than they are in using fossil fuels like natural gas. NYSERDA is offering $500,000 for a one-year contract to help the agency tout its wide-ranging push to phase out gas cars in favor of electric vehicles, dump gas-heated homes in favor of electric heat, and eliminate fossil-fuel power generation in favor of solar and wind. While they’re at it, maybe they can sell you a bridge in Brooklyn, too.
Where do business dreams go to die? New York State, of course. Yesterday, the New York State Senate passed a bill to ban the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) in any process to extract natural gas or oil in the so-called Empire State. The NY Assembly (our state’s lower chamber) voted to approve the same bill a week ago (see 
A group of so-called environmental advocates (old hippies) gathered in Albany at the Capitol yesterday to continue their call to ban all “fracking,” including CO2 (carbon dioxide) used to extract natural gas. We wonder if they know that a total ban on “all” fracking includes a ban on fracking geothermal wells being pushed by the governor.