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NY Lunacy – Bill Allows Residents to Sue O&G for Global Warming

We have lamented, on many occasions, that New York State (our beloved home state) has simply gone to Hades. The state is now run by left-wing radicals. When you cross the border into NY, you are entering The Twilight Zone (a pun and nod to the talented Rod Serling, who was born and grew up in Binghamton, NY). Case in point: A radical member of the NY Senate, along with a member of the NY Assembly, have teamed up to introduce a truly frightening bill. Senate Bill S9612, introduced by the wacky Sen. Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat, would allow anyone to sue oil and gas companies claiming damage from mythical (and unproven) “climate change.”
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Leaving NY: Gas Appliance Dealers Put Businesses Up for Sale

The policies of politicians like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul have real-world consequences. Even if those policies never actually get implemented. Last week, the intellectually-challenged Hochul proposed banning the sale of all new natural gas appliances across the state, and indeed ban hooking up new homes and businesses to gas, by 2030 (see NY Gov. Hochul Loses Her Mind – Wants to Ban Gas in New Buildings). Gas appliance dealers have had enough of the attacks, and some (many?) are now putting their businesses on the market for sale–planning to leave New York, joining what has turned into a flood of people exiting our very broken state. This was predicted. Come to think of it, WE predicted it! And it won’t just be gas appliance dealers who pick up and leave broken NY.
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Penn State Presents Pro-Fracking Case to Upper Delaware Council

The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) hosted a public presentation titled “Water Resource and Environmental Considerations with Shale Gas Development in the Appalachian Basin” last week at the Upper Delaware Council office in Narrowsburg, NY. The program was delivered virtually by Dr. David Yoxtheimer, Ph.D., P.G., assistant research professor and Extension associate with the Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research at Penn State University. Yoxtheimer did a great job of laying out the facts of Marcellus drilling–both the good and the not-so-good, with an eye on how to mitigate the risks.
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NY Gov. Hochul Loses Her Mind – Wants to Ban Gas in New Buildings

Gov. Kathy Hochul is proposing to make New York the first state in the U.S. to ban natural gas heating and appliances in new buildings as a way to fight mythical man-made global warming. During her state-of-the-state address on Tuesday, Hochul proposed to ban the use of fossil fuels for heating and appliances (stoves) in homes by 2025, and a ban for businesses and larger structures (like apartment buildings) by 2028. New York would also prohibit the sale of any new fossil-fuel heating systems starting in 2030. Yes, she has certifiably lost her mind.
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NY Bans Oil, NatGas, Propane Furnaces Beginning 2025 – Move Now!

You may want to consider moving out of New York State if you still live here. The state has collectively lost its mind. NY political leaders are so consumed with hatred of fossil fuels they are about to force its residents to pay an average of $28,000 to convert their homes away from heating and cooking with natural gas, propane, and fuel oil (see NYers Will Pay Average $28K to Retrofit Homes for All-Electric). We’ve been raising the alarm, warning New Yorkers since 2019, when the state passed a draconian “energy” law, that residents will one day have to stop using fossil energy to heat and cook (see New York Pulls the Trigger, Commits Energy Suicide with New Law). That day has arrived. Yesterday a state commission approved plans to phase out fossil fuel-burning furnaces beginning as soon as 2025 as part of NY’s draconian (dystopian) program to address mythical “climate change.”
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Manufacturers Face Natural Gas Scarcity Along Eastern Seaboard

Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA), a trade group representing some of the biggest consumers of energy in the U.S. (i.e., manufacturers), wrote a letter to the governors of 12 states along the Eastern Seaboard asking those governors to prioritize natural gas pipelines in their respective states (full copy of the letter below). Recipients included Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and (falling on deaf ears) New York and New Jersey. According to the letter, manufacturing companies along the East Coast face growing natural gas scarcity due to the lack of interstate natural gas pipeline capacity.
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DRBC Adopts Meaningless Prohibition on Shale Wastewater Disposal

DRBC Iron Curtain (click for larger version)

The leftists of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) voted yesterday to approve a final rule prohibiting the discharge of wastewater from high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) to water or land in the Delaware River Basin. The final rule also “clarifies” the circumstances in which water, including wastewater, may be exported from or imported into the Basin. The bottom line from yesterday’s action is that nothing has materially changed. Fracking is currently banned in the Basin under a previous action by the Commission. And nobody discharges frack wastewater on the ground or in streams and rivers anywhere, including in the Delaware River Basin. So what did the vote accomplish for the rabid left? Just more virtue signaling.
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NYers Will Pay Average $28K to Retrofit Homes for All-Electric

Most New Yorkers are clueless about a law passed in 2019 called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (or “Climate Act”), which limits carbon dioxide emissions to zero (an impossibility) by 2050 (see New York Pulls the Trigger, Commits Energy Suicide with New Law). The law is going to ban the use of oil and natural gas for heat during our cold winters. It will also ban the use of wood stoves (see New York Plans to Outlaw Heating with Wood, Cites Global Warming). At some point, New Yorkers will wake up to the fact they are being forced into using all-electric for heat, cooking, etc. And it’s going to cost them–big time. The Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) released a report yesterday showing that the average New York household will be forced to spend $27,800 in order to comply with a ban on new hookups for natural gas, yet another law being peddled by Gov. Hochul and the left.
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Closed for Business: NY Bans Crypto Mining that Uses Fossil Energy

In April, the New York State Assembly passed Assembly Bill A7389C. In June, the New York State Senate passed the same bill, sending it to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk for a signature (see Business-Hostile NY Passes Bill Banning Fossil Fuel Bitcoin Mining). Last week Gov. Hochul signed the bill into law. For the next two years, unless a bitcoin mining company uses 100% renewable energy (absolutely NO fossil fuel energy), it will not be allowed to expand or renew permits, and new miners will not be allowed to come online. Get out of NY while you still can!
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Red Tsunami that Wasn’t – Repubs May Take House, PA Biggest Loser

Inept and unaccomplished John Fetterman wins Senate in PA

We sincerely thought yesterday’s election would have a far better turnout. We’re trying not to despair, but it’s hard. New York State is lost. It’s gone. Overrun with crime and zero prospects for fracking–ever. It’s time to leave NY (we never thought we would say it, but we’re giving up on NY). The Pennsylvania Marcellus industry is now in for four very hard years under Gov. Josh Shapiro. We warned you he would come for the Marcellus. We’ll be here to chronicle it. And John Fetterman? What a disaster. He’s never even held a real job, he can’t speak in complete sentences–and he’s your new U.S. Senator. A full-fledged Communist. PA–you will now get what you deserve. Tough words of tough love.
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Left is Terrified Lee Zeldin Will Win NY Gov & Lift Frack Ban

Lee Zeldin

With each passing day, hope grows for those of us who live behind enemy lines in the People’s Republic of New York, where fracking is banned. It appears that the Republican candidate for Governor, Lee Zeldin, may actually win next Tuesday’s election. If he does win, it directly threatens climate jihadists’ plans to ban fossil energy in New York, and that has them VERY nervous. According to an article appearing in the POLITICO-owned E&E News, New York Democrats openly admit there IS a way a new Republican governor can overturn the current signed-into-law ban on fracking. Is our long nightmare in the Empire State about to be over?
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Fracking May Help Republican Lee Zeldin Win NY Governor Race

Politics is fascinating for us (in case you couldn’t tell when reading MDN). This site often features articles about the intersection of politics and energy. Living in New York State, editor Jim Willis has long advocated for shale drilling. Fracking in NY was the reason Jim started this blog/news site! MDN began in 2009 when shale drilling in NY seemed about to take off. And then, a series of unfortunate events led to the profoundly corrupt Andrew Cuomo becoming governor, seizing power in the Empire State. Cuomo not only temporarily blocked fracking in NY, he ultimately signed a bill into law permanently banning it (see Cuomo PERMANENTLY Bans NY Fracking in Now-Adopted Budget). One of the key issues the current Republican candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, is running on is overturning the ban and allowing Upstate to begin fracking. Zeldin’s message is resonating, and he may actually win!
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Radicals Demand DRBC Vote to Institute Full, Permanent Frack Ban

In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the state senators who represent Pennsylvania landowners living in the Delaware River Basin, primarily in Wayne and Pike counties in the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania, don’t have “standing” to sue the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to overturn its ban on fracking (see 3rd Circuit Buys Anti Argument, Blocks PA from Suing DRBC). The DRBC has proposed a permanent ban but has never actually conducted a final vote to permanently ban fracking in the Basin (see Governors from PA-NY-DE Vote to Ban Fracking in Dela. River Basin). The left, sensing it may lose either the Pennsylvania or New York governorships (or both), is pushing DRBC members to take a final vote to permanently ban fracking in the basin–before it loses power.
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Could Fracking Issue Help Elect Next Governor in New York State?

Lee Zeldin

In something of a surprise, one major poll has the race for Governor in New York State a tossup–within the statistical margin of error. Lee Zeldin, a Republican Congressman from Long Island, is challenging incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul, who was corrupt Andrew Cuomo’s Lt. Governor and took over as Governor following Cuomo’s resignation in disgrace. Hochul is every bit as radical, maybe more so, than Cuomo was, at least when it comes to banning fossil energy in the state, including her support to keep fracking banned. Given skyrocketing prices for natural gas (and oil-based products) in the Empire State, Zeldin’s support for fracking appears to be having a positive impact on the race. Zeldin, a fracking supporter, may even win–although it’s still a long shot.
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New York Makes a Serious Play to Grab $2B Regional Hydrogen Hub

It grieves us to write this, but New York State and its uber-leftist, very destructive Governor, Kathy Hochul, is running rings around Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia with respect to attracting one of four $2 billion hydrogen hubs. Hochul has just orchestrated adding two more states to what is now a six-state coalition aimed at grabbing the hub. In addition to six northeastern states, the NY coalition boasts the participation of 14 private sector industry leaders, 12 utilities, 20 hydrogen technology original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), ten universities, seven non-profits, two transportation companies, and three state agencies. There are over 60 partners cooperating to lay the groundwork for attracting the hydrogen hub to New York State.
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Propane Industry Fights Back Against Radicals in New York

Bill Overbaugh, executive director of the New York Propane Gas Association

The propane industry in New York State is in a fight for its life. New York State’s so-called Climate Act (passed in 2019) requires New York to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030, and no less than 85% by 2050, from 1990 levels. So far, the Climate Action Council (CAC), which is tasked with developing a framework for implementing these impossible goals, has proposed outright bans on fossil fuels in favor of electrification. Just two of the 22-member committee represent the fossil fuel industry (which passes for fair and balanced in NY). The New York Propane Gas Association (NYPGA) is fighting back against the crazies who demand an end to the use of propane in the state. Learn how the NYPGA is responding, below.
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