NFG Asks FERC for Extra 3 Yrs to Build Northern Access Pipe in NY
Four years ago National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) proposed and filed to build the Northern Access Pipeline project–a $500 million project that includes building 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern Pennsylvania up to Erie County, NY. The project also calls for 3 miles of new pipeline further up, in Niagara County, along with a new compressor station in the Town of Pendleton (also in Niagara County). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted final approval for the project in February of 2017 (see NFG’s Northern Access Pipe in NY/PA Gets FERC Approval). However, in April 2017, the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) ruled against granting the project stream crossing permits, effectively killing it, at least for now (see Cuomo’s Corrupt NY DEC Blocks NFG Northern Access Pipeline Permit).
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In reading through the story we share below, we feel dirty. Like we need a shower. New York State is deeply, deeply corrupt–at the highest levels. As in Gov. Andrew Cuomo. And every now and again, that corruption spreads to otherwise good projects, like converting a small coal-fired electric plant to burn natural gas. The Greenidge Generation power station in Yates County, located along the shoreline of Seneca Lake in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of upstate NY, is one such a project caught in the web of Cuomo’s corruption. Originally built in the 1930s, the operator of the plant, Atlas Holdings, wanted to convert it from burning coal to burning natural gas. After paying $120,000 to Andrew Cuomo’s campaign for reelection and more than $500,000 in payments to lobbyists, Atlas got a “fast track” approval and certain environmental exemptions from the Cuomo Administration. It’s a worthy project and should have been approved without such payoffs, but the project couldn’t get approved otherwise. Here’s the sordid story.
Does the oil and gas industry in New York State even matter anymore? Well, yes, it does! It employs a number of people and produces oil and gas to feed our economy. Although Andrew Cuomo has single-handedly sentenced upstate residents to generational poverty by denying them the opportunity to allow shale drilling, there is a rich history of conventional drilling for oil and gas in the state. But now, even the conventional industry is under assault and attack by Cuomo and his lackeys at the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). How? The DEC has unveiled what IOGA of NY calls “devastating proposed air regulations”–regulations that will shut down many o&g operators in the Empire State. IOGA calls it a “regulatory assault.” We call New York State the Empire Crumbling State.
Another bump in the road for National Fuel Gas Company and their Northern Access Expansion pipeline project. Not a major hurdle. Not an apocalypse. Not the end of the line. A bump. The Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court (in NY, Supreme Court is a low court, one step up from county court), overturned the decision of the lower Supreme Court granting NFG the power of eminent domain to build Northern Access, a project not scheduled to get built until 2022. The attorney who won the case against NFG proclaimed without eminent domain, “The pipeline is dead.” We say he’s dead wrong.
The battle continues to rage in the lib Dem socialist utopia of Ithaca (Tompkins County), NY over a plan to convert a local coal-fired electric generating plant to use much better-for-the-environment and far-less-polluting natural gas. Yet local antis, who irrationally (and we mean clinically insane) hate fossil fuels, continue to object and preen themselves at county board meetings to object to converting the plant. They object to the conversion because natural gas is a “fossil fuel”–the modern form of eeeeevil in their eyes. And so (once again, demonstrating clinical insanity), they prefer to keep the plant burning coal. The plant will have to burn something. We don’t see any of these same antis volunteering to unhook themselves from the electric grid. The electricity flowing to their homes needs to get generated somehow, and it sure ain’t renewables doing it.
Miracle of miracles, two (!) Democrat FERC commissioners (Cheryl LaFleur and Dick Glick), along with one Republican commissioner (Chairman Neil Chatterjee), voted unanimously to extend the time frame by another two years for Williams to build the Constitution Pipeline. As you may recall, the Constitution was stopped cold by corrupt NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his lackeys at the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Constitution is planned to run from Susquehanna County, PA up into, and mostly situated in, New York State. Cuomo won’t be happy with this decision because it’s a very loud and clear signal that FERC believes the project *will* some day get built.
The actions of political leaders have consequences. Sometimes dire consequences. People like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo believe they can wave a magic wand and proclaim, “No more fossil fuels, we’ll just use solar and wind instead.” But proclaiming it doesn’t make it so. Proclaiming it doesn’t exempt you from the consequences of your actions. In recent years Cuomo has blocked new natural gas pipeline projects that would deliver Marcellus gas from Pennsylvania, claiming we need to move to so-called renewable energy. Now the chickens have come home to roost.
We’re feeling better and better that President Trump is ready to take action to overrule states like New York that abuse the federal Clean Water Act in order to block interstate pipeline projects. We first picked up on comments by Energy Secretary Rick Perry back in May (see 
Finally! Competitive Power Ventures’ 680-megawatt CPV Valley Energy Center in Wawayanda (Orange County), NY is fully up and running and producing enough electricity to power 600,000 liberal NY homes. New York Gov. Cuomo tried his best to block the recently-completed (costing $900 million) Marcellus gas-fed plant from going online by instructing the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to deny renewing a permit they previously issued, but a judge saw right through that one and overruled the DEC.
On July 31 midstream giant Williams announced it had added a new member to its board of directors, Vicki Fuller. We didn’t think much of it at the time. We included a mention in our “best of the rest” section the following day (see 
Warning: Knowledge of what’s happening in the offices of governors like Jerry Brown (California) and Andrew Cuomo (New York), and their attorney generals, will make you want to throw up–at the overt corruption. A pair of research reports from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) shines a very bright light on what is major corruption at the highest levels of our state governments. One report, titled “Law Enforcement for Rent: How Special Interests Fund Climate Policy through State Attorneys General” (full copy below) details how Democrat Attorney Generals in various states, including New York and Maryland, are selling access to their offices to Big Green groups. AGs can only make so much mischief. They have budgets that control how many staffers they can hire. In order to circumvent those hiring limits, Big Green groups are funding lawyers and assistants to help AGs sue fossil fuel companies–they work right in the AG’s office! If it’s not outright illegal, it’s certainly unethical. State legislatures need to pass laws now to prevent this kind of abuse of our legal system to favor one side over another. The law is supposed to be blind and impartial, not weighted against one side or the other. If that weren’t bad enough, CEI published a second study titled “Government for Rent: How Special Interests Finance Governors to Pursue Their Climate Policy Agenda” (full copy below) showing how some Democrat governors are doing the same thing–allowing outside, paid-by-Big-Green staffers to be added to their operations in an attempt to slander and smear fossil fuel companies. Andrew Cuomo’s office is one of the offenders. THIS MUST STOP…
It’s just coming to light (for us anyway) that earlier this year Williams donated $100,000 to the Democratic Governors Association–a group that is devoted to electing more Democrats as governors, and a group that heavily supports Andrew Cuomo in his reelection bid here in the Empire State. Shame on Williams. Are they insane? Cuomo, who is CORRUPT, has blocked Williams project after Williams project in New York. But apparently he has not blocked all Williams projects. Less than three months after the Williams “donation,” the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which ONLY does the bidding of Cuomo, denied “without prejudice” a water quality permit for the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project, allowing Williams to submit a new application (i.e. keeping it alive). Oh, and Cuomo hired the lobbyist who was working on that same pipeline project…to run his reelection campaign. Sniff sniff. Do you smell something? We’re not accusing anybody of anything–least of all Williams, which has to do what they have to do in a state that’s run like a third world dictatorship. However, you have to admit the situation raises questions. And we still can’t get over the fact that Williams donated a hundred grand to the other side. That boggles the mind…
If you live in New York State, as MDN editor Jim Willis does, you often shake your head at the stupidity of our political leaders. Especially people like Gov. Andrew Cuomo. How could he, in good conscience, turn against natural gas and block pipelines, electric plants and fracking? Is he obtuse? Is he getting paid-off by someone? There has to be a reason for his obviously irrational behavior. What is that reason? We have, perhaps, a better understanding now. The radical left is well-organized–think Saul Alinksy, Obama and Hillary Clinton’s idol. Taking a chapter from Alinksy’s “Rules for Radicals” book, the green radicals in NY have organized themselves to pressure Cuomo. We’d call it highly organized and well-funded. The radicals have weekly meetings, plan strategy, and motivate groups of blind followers to show up and heckle Cuomo at public events. And guess what? Cuomo caves–every time. Like a house of cards. The radicals have found the magic formula to pressure Cuomo into doing their bidding. Andrew Cuomo is actually weak-willed. He’s a patsy for the green movement because he fears them, fears a public shaming by them. And so they have their way with him–every time. None other than a liberal Gannett reporter has outed Cuomo as a Big Green patsy…