New York

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    TGP Gets FERC Pushback on Need for 2 NED Compressor Stations in NY

    Kinder Morgan and their Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) subsidiary have gotten some pushback from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) over their planned Northeast Energy Direct pipeline plans in Schoharie County, NY. Kinder’s plans call for two different portions of the NED project–the Supply Path portion that comes from the gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania to Schoharie County, and the Market Path portion that goes from Schoharie County into Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and back into Mass. near Boston. The two different pipelines in Schoharie will use two different compressor stations under Kinder’s existing plan. FERC wants to know why they cant’ be combined into a single compressor station to reduce footprint. FERC is giving Kinder 20 days to respond…
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    Phys.org, Others Run 3 Yr-Old New York Frack Study as New News

    We found this one kind of amusing, and instructive, illustrating how anti-drillers unthinkingly get their “news.” On September 26, 2012 (yes, over three years ago) Syracuse University issued a press release about a program begun earlier in 2012 called Project SWIFT (Shale-Water Interaction Forensic Tools). The aim of the research project was to baseline test water wells for homeowners in New York State so when/if fracking arrives, there is solid scientific evidence for the condition of water before and then after fracking. The study also, as it turns out, innovated a few new techniques, including a method to measure salinity in water, the use of iodine as a tracer when testing, etc. Here’s the thing–the study was concluded in 2014 and of course in 2014 Gov. Cuomo banned fracking for the foreseeable future in the Empire State. So it’s all over and done with. No need for more testing. The project ran its course. But what’s this? Several authoritative “science” sites all of a sudden re-ran the original Syracuse University press release about Project SWFIT–with this week’s date on it! Word for word, same press release as 3+ years ago–slapping a new date from this week on it. One of the sites was EurekAlert!. Another was Phys.org. Their postings created a cascading or domino effect with a number of enviro sites picking it up and running it as new news. Egg on face anyone?…
    Read More “Phys.org, Others Run 3 Yr-Old New York Frack Study as New News”

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    Binghamton Newspaper Extreme Anti-Drilling Bias on Display

    This is what passes for “journalism” at the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (P&SB), MDN’s hometown newspaper. Once upon a time the P&SB had a lefty reporter working for them, Tom Wilber. We’ve highlighted Tom’s anti-fracking articles in the past. Tom is a good writer, and fancied himself an Author, so he left the P&SB to write a book on fracking, “Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortunes, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale.” Perhaps Tom thought he could retire in style after attacking shale energy. The book bombed. Tom had to get a day job again and ended up working for the P&SB (surprise!). He recently penned a rehashed diatribe against shale drilling in a series on shale energy appearing in the pages of the P&SB. We found it, quite frankly, boring. If we’re bored, you will be too–which is why we didn’t bother to comment on the series. Fortunately, MDN friends Tom Shepstone and others “took one for the team” and analyzed Tom’s latest anti-drilling diatribe (see NGN: Is That All There Is, Tom Wilber?). Tom (Shepstone) deserves hazard pay for reading it all. Our point: Tom Wilber is what the P&SB considers to be a fair, impartial journalist. Well, no they don’t, not really. They know he’s as biased and unfair as the editors at the P&SB, which is why they run his articles. They present his work as impartial journalism. To further highlight just how unfair and biased the P&SB is, we spotted two opinion pieces in the Sunday edition (yesterday). You know how newspapers run side-by-side “for and against” op-ed pieces? This time it was “against and against”–both op-eds were against fracking and shale energy. That’s what passes for “fair” in the P&SB…
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    Rumor: NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Will Be Indicted Jan 2 for Corruption

    New York State, when it comes to our elected officials, is a corrupt as it gets. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has been on a mission to clean up corruption in the Empire State. Bharara is making a name for himself like another former U.S. Attorney–Rudy Giuliani. Bharara has been extremely successful so far: Both former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (Democrat) and former Senate Deputy Majority Leader Tom Libous (Republican) have been convicted of corruption and removed from office. Currently the former Senate Majority Leader, Dean Skelos, is on trial in federal court in Manhattan and almost certainly will be convicted as well (see our story from yesterday, Bombshell Revelation: Cuomo was on Cusp of Lifting Frack Ban). NY State’s politics has always been known as “three men in a room” because the Governor, Assembly Speaker and Senate Majority Leader are the power brokers who cut deals that then get adopted. With two of the three men in the room either convicted (or about to be convicted) as corrupt felons, it makes you wonder about the third man–Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Another bombshell revelation: sources are telling the Buffalo Chronicle (a blog site) what has long been rumored–that Preet Bharara will go after Andrew Cuomo next. In fact, three (!) sources have told the Chronicle that Bharara will file an indictment against Cuomo on Jan. 2, 2016. So what does this have to do with shale drilling?…
    Read More “Rumor: NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Will Be Indicted Jan 2 for Corruption”

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    Bombshell Revelation: Cuomo was on Cusp of Lifting Frack Ban

    An interesting update on what is now ancient history in New York State with regard to Andrew Cuomo and his ban on fracking. According to secretly recorded wiretaps of conversations of the son of former NY Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Cuomo official made the rounds to several prominent Senate Republicans to ask if there would be any “blowback” when (not if) Cuomo lifted a ban on fracking. If true, the revelation is a bombshell–that Cuomo had intended to lift the moratorium but changed his mind at the last minute. The problem with the recorded conversations is that Skelos’ son Adam, in talking with three different lobbyists, attributes the conversation to different Cuomo Administration sources. That is, he changes his story, making his story less credible. Both father Dean and son Adam Skelos are on trial in Manhattan for corruption. Dean tried to help his son get work with sweetheart deals–something that happens every day in New York with both Republicans and Democrats. We’re not excusing corruption–just pointing out the context and circumstances…
    Read More “Bombshell Revelation: Cuomo was on Cusp of Lifting Frack Ban”

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    NY Town Supports, Antis Fundraise Against, Waterless Fracking

    MDN editor Jim Willis is often asked, when people learn of his occupation of writing about shale drilling, “What’s up with New York? Will there ever be any drilling in the state?” Jim’s answer is always the same: some day. But likely not until we excrete out of office our current man-child governor, Andy Cuomo. The one potential bright spot for fracking in the Empire State is a plan by a small group of farmers in Tioga County, NY to use waterless fracking technology to drill a test shale well (see NY Landowners File to Frack Horizontal Well w/Waterless Tech). The Snyder Farm Group, as it’s called, has filed an application with the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC)–owned and controlled by Cuomo–so that’s where the application now sits, with nothing happening so far as we can tell. Sooner or later the Snyder Group will have to sue the DEC to move things along. In the meantime, we have two bits of news to share with respect to the Town of Barton waterless fracking proposal. One bit of news is about support for the plan in Tioga County, and the other is about opposition to the plan from the usual suspects who oppose ANYTHING to do with fossil energy, not because it’s somehow inherently dangerous to extract natural gas, but because it IS natural gas. An irrational hatred of carbon molecules (the stuff you breathe out with every breath)…
    Read More “NY Town Supports, Antis Fundraise Against, Waterless Fracking”

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    Will Pilgrim Pipeline be Allowed to Settle in the NY World?

    Pilgrim Pipeline Holdings is developing an East Coast pipeline to carry refined petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and jet and aviation fuel northbound from Linden, New Jersey to Albany, New York (178 miles). In addition, a second pipeline will carry crude oil from Albany south to NJ and other locations. Two pipelines, side by side, liquids flowing through them in different directions. Pilgrim (how apropos this announcement comes at Thanksgiving) has just filed an official application with the Thruway Authority. Their plan is to lay 79% of the pipeline within the Thruway right of way. No, technically this is not a Marcellus/Utica story–although some of the crude they plan to flow from Albany to NJ refineries may indeed come from the Marcellus/Utica. It’s a pipeline for fossil fuels and that will surely bring the crazies right out of the woodwork, which is why we bring you this story…
    Read More “Will Pilgrim Pipeline be Allowed to Settle in the NY World?”

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    Former Fed Prosecutor Says NY AG Targeting Exxon “Tip of Iceberg”

    MDN is privileged to receive great insights from many sources. We currently have over 30,000 unique monthly readers. Sometimes those readers send us unsolicited comments and news worth sharing, like this time. John Marti, a former federal prosecutor and U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota (now a partner with the international law firm Dorsey and Whitney) sent us his insights into the investigation being run by New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Schneiderman, you may recall, is conducting a witch trial in an attempt to shake down Exxon Mobil for billions over the company’s previous statements about mythical global warming (see NY AG Targets/Accuses ExxonMobil of Lying about ‘Climate Change’ and NY AG Schneiderman Launches the Climate Witch Trials). Schneiderman is attempting to criminalize First Amendment free speech. Marti has some sage advice for fossil fuel companies. He warns that Schneiderman’s action is “the tip of the iceberg”–with more companies likely to end up in the crosshairs…
    Read More “Former Fed Prosecutor Says NY AG Targeting Exxon “Tip of Iceberg””

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    Radical Bishop Finds Religion in Protesting Algonquin Pipeline

    It grieves us when we see someone misuse religion as an excuse to promote–or oppose–a purely political ideology. Such is the case with a retired Episcopal bishop from Westchester County, NY who claims a higher power blesses his opposition to expanding a natural gas pipeline that will bring carbon-lowering, clean burning natural gas to millions of people in the northeast. The bishop is really nothing more than just another 60s hippie radical trading on the good name of the church. Bishop George Packard, previously arrested for being an Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalist protester, was recently arrested for illegally blocking access to a construction site where Spectra Energy workers are working on the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) project to expand capacity of the Algonquin Gas Transmission natural gas pipeline to flow more Marcellus/Utica gas to northeast markets. Apparently Bishop Packard feels that God would have him block cheap, clean burning gas, lowering the bills for millions of people and making their lives here on earth a little better. What explains this apparent defection from loving God to loving political ideology instead?…
    Read More “Radical Bishop Finds Religion in Protesting Algonquin Pipeline”

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    The Incredibly (Stupid) Hulk Praises Cuomo for Port Ambrose Veto

    Last Friday MDN told you that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had once again bowed to political pressure from his lunatic left and vetoed a proposed off-shore LNG import facility called Port Ambrose (see NY Gov. Cuomo Vetoes Port Ambrose LNG Import Terminal). Not having much to do between Avengers movies, Mark Ruffalo (who plays Bruce Banner/Incredible Hulk) occupies his time by making the rounds at small anti-fracking protest rallies where adoring fans as vapid as he is engage in sickening hero worship–believing a professional liar (i.e. actor) actually knows something about fracking and should be believed. Hearing of Cuomo’s veto of the Port Ambrose project–a project that would have imported non-fracked gas from Trinidad, potentially displacing fracked Marcellus gas–Ruffalo issued the following statement from his Americans Against Fracking organization praising Cuomo…
    Read More “The Incredibly (Stupid) Hulk Praises Cuomo for Port Ambrose Veto”

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    NY Gov. Cuomo Vetoes Port Ambrose LNG Import Terminal

    vetoA rather abrupt end for an issue that was just getting started. Liberty Natural Gas filed a plan back in 2010, prior to the Marcellus Shale revolution, to construct an off-shore LNG import (not export) facility off the coast of New York and New Jersey–in the ocean. A floating LNG facility called the Port Ambrose project. A pipeline would run from the off-shore terminal to Jones Beach, NY and from there would connect to a Transco pipeline lateral. The U.S. Coast Guard recently gave their blessing to the project (see Coast Guard Approves Port Ambrose LNG Import Terminal Near NYC/NJ). Liberty has tried to sell the project to New York and New Jersey anti-drilling nutters by saying the gas would come from Trinidad and wouldn’t be that nasty, fracked gas loaded with radon (see Liberty Says “Non-Fracked” Trinidad Gas Better than Marcellus Gas). Needless to say that was a whopping error on Liberty’s part–to smear the entire drilling industry in a vain attempt to garner favor with Kool Aid drinking global warmers, just to make a buck. Liberty’s “it’s not fracked gas” rationale didn’t stop the antis–they were just beginning to organize with protests and rallies–their version of a tailgate party at an NFL game. And now New York Gov. Cuomo has gone and ruined it for them. Cuomo, with the stroke of a pen, has vetoed the project. It’s dead. Done. Finished. Won’t happen…
    Read More “NY Gov. Cuomo Vetoes Port Ambrose LNG Import Terminal”

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    NY AG Schneiderman Launches the Climate Witch Trials

    Once a witch-hunter catches the scent of a suspected witch–better watch out! It struck us as we read about the drummed up false charges New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is alleging against ExxonMobil–charges that the company has knowingly made false statements about their own complicity and contribution to mythical climate change–just how doomed we really are to repeat history. Schneiderman’s actions reminded us of something, and then we found it: “Rebecca Nurse, a sick and elderly woman of seventy-years old, stood for examination before the court on charges of practicing witchcraft on March 24, 1692. Judge John Hathorne, assisted by Judge Jonathan Corwin, conducted the examination in the meeting house of Salem Village before a crowd of people from Salem Village. The examination of “Goody Nurse” developed into a spectacle worthy of the attendance of so many onlookers, as a number of afflicted women launched into “grevious fitts” and openly denounced Rebecca Nurse as the cause of their torment. In the end, after one of the great confrontations between an accused and the infamous Judge Hathorne, the Judges found cause to bind Rebecca Nurse over for trial after which she was executed on Gallows Hill on July 19, 1692.” (University of Virginia). We’re facing the Salem Witch Trials all over again–some 323 years later. Apparently we didn’t learn anything the first time around. MDN calls Schneiderman’s current campaign the Climate Witch Trials–the prosecution and persecution of innocent companies based on a false belief that mankind causes global warming by burning fossil fuels. Now we learn Schneiderman may be gunning for more than just ExxonMobil…
    Read More “NY AG Schneiderman Launches the Climate Witch Trials”

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    NY AG Targets/Accuses ExxonMobil of Lying about ‘Climate Change’

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    Eric Schneiderman, NY AG

    We’ve written before about the lawless Attorney General from New York–Eric T. Schneiderman. He attacks his own constituents like landowners in the state (see NY AG Schneiderman Files to Dismiss JLCNY Lawsuit Against Cuomo), threatened the Delaware River Basin Commission that he would sue them if they allowed fracking (see NY AG Schneiderman Threatens New DRBC Lawsuit over Fracking), and he regularly bullies oil and gas companies (see NY Attorney General Schneiderman Subpoenas Shale Drillers and More on NY AG Schneiderman’s Bullying of Anadarko & EOG Resources). Schneiderman has just performed a breathtaking act of chutzpah: He’s launched an investigation and subpoenaed ExxonMobil, the largest oil company in the United States (4th largest in the world), accusing them of making false statements about so-called man-made global warming. He’s saying they contribute to global warming and they’re lying about their role in it–that they’ve made false statements to the public that contradict what their own internal research has found. That is, he is using the same strategy used against tobacco companies 20 years ago…
    Read More “NY AG Targets/Accuses ExxonMobil of Lying about ‘Climate Change’”

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    4 Antis Opposing NY LPG Storage Facility Lose Big in Local Election

    Today’s lead story on MDN is about the defeat of two anti-drilling Martians in Tuesday’s election–but this story is a close second in importance. Since 2010 a debate has ragged in Schuyler County, NY over whether or not to allow then-Inergy, now-Crestwood Midstream, to convert a depleted salt cavern along the shore of Seneca Lake into underground storage for LPG–liquefied petroleum gas (i.e. propane). We’ve covered the story extensively on MDN over the years. The current status is that an administrative law judge is reviewing the plan, but ultimately the head of the state’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will grant a final decision on whether or not to allow the plan to move forward. Unfortunately the DEC is mired in politics–controlled by Gov. Andrew Cuomo who is in turned influenced by his lunatic left wingnuts. Over the years some of those wingnuts like Sandra Steingraber, so-called “scholar in residence” at Ithaca College (paid to do nothing but trot around lying about fracking), and Josh Fox of Gasland fame have protested and gotten themselves arrested at the facility during publicity stunts. Antis need a forum to vent and they can’t get themselves arrested every day (that gets old), so they turned to the local town board (Town of Reading) where the LPG plant would be located. Board meeting after board meeting they bleated and blatted about the facility–to the point the board has forbidden any more discussion of the issue. So the antis mounted a challenge to the local town supervisor, two town board seats and the town clerk. In Tuesday’s election, all four antis running for those seats went down to a HUGE defeat. Wasn’t even close. Which is noteworthy, and heartening, that in our beloved overtaxed, over-regulated, over-liberal New York State there are still clear-headed people who see through the lies and smears of the antis. Here’s the story of their defeat, and why Reading is so important in this debate…
    Read More “4 Antis Opposing NY LPG Storage Facility Lose Big in Local Election”

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    Bought & Paid For: NY Anti-Drilling Researcher Gets $1.25M Grant

    There’s a new thing going around–it’s called “advocacy science.” And boy oh boy does it ever pay big bucks! Here’s how it works: Attend an Ivy League school like Cornell, do some “research” with a pre-determined outcome (i.e. ignore real science), wait a few years–and collect $1.25 million?! That’s how it worked out for Elaine Hill, currently a University of Rochester Medical Center researcher who did sloppy research that she published as a Cornell student (without peer review) in 2012. The “study” found babies born near fracked wells are allegedly more likely to have low birth weights than those not born near fracked wells (see her paper here). Later studies that grabbed headlines used her work as its foundation (see MSC Devastating Critique of “Low Birth Weight Near Fracking” Study). Hill is now being richly rewarded for her efforts in aiding the anti-drilling cause. The National Institutes of Health (your tax dollars at work) have just awarded Hill–yes Hill, one person–a staggering $1.25 million grant to do more “research.” In essence, she’s set for life. Bought and paid for. A millionaire. All it took was trading on the name of Cornell University and ignoring real science to get there. Here’s the kicker–her degree isn’t in biochemistry or biology or medicine or any hard science. Hill’s degree is in economics…
    Read More “Bought & Paid For: NY Anti-Drilling Researcher Gets $1.25M Grant”

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    Dunkirk, NY Coal-Fired Electric Plant Closing in January 2016

    As MDN previously reported, a coal-fired electric generating plant near Buffalo (in Dunkirk) was slated to be converted to burn natural gas–a win/win for everyone (see Dunkirk, NY Electric Plant Saved – Converting from Coal to NatGas). Oh sure, radical environmentalists like the Sierra Club opposed it, but that’s to be expected. Crazy people do crazy things. Everything seemed to be fine until a competitor hauled NRG, the plant’s owner, into court to dispute the change from coal to natgas. Sounds equally crazy that a competitor can stop the change, but NRG says fighting the case will take years, so they’re just going to close the plant down (see Lawsuit Prevents NY Power Plant from Converting to NatGas, Closing). Sadly, last week the New York State Independent System Operator (NYISO) gave its blessing to NRG to close down the Dunkirk plant. This is an economic nuclear bomb for that community. The Town of Dunkirk gets 40% of its tax revenue from the plant. What will they do now?…
    Read More “Dunkirk, NY Coal-Fired Electric Plant Closing in January 2016”