Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County
Judge Gets Angrier by the Day with Lawyers in Cabot Case
The judge in a lawsuit initiated by Cabot Oil & Gas against a Susquehanna County, PA landowner and his lawyers has had it up to here with the ongoing stonewalling and delay tactics by the landowner’s lawyers. “Four years we’ve been spinning our wheels on this nonsense,” the judge said. “The court is extremely frustrated, to put it politely.” The judge bordered on being impolite at a hearing last Thursday…
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MDN has been writing about a privately-owned dump near Scranton, the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, for the past decade (
Last Wednesday the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) held its Spring Meeting for 2021–in person! The meeting convened at Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh. The several hundred who attended got the pleasure of hearing people talk positively about oil and gas and fossil fuels in general. PIOGA President Dan Weaver said, “Don’t be afraid to stand up and speak out.” CNX CEO Nick DeIuliis said, “This industry is a noble one. You are doers that should be celebrated by all and appreciated by the informed.” God bless them both! Isn’t it great to be affirmed for the good work you do, rather than smeared and lied about?
We’re devastated. We know you’re not supposed to have favorites, but we do. Our favorite Marcellus/Utica driller for years has been Cabot Oil & Gas. We know some great folks who work for Cabot. It has been a peerless operator in the northeast Marcellus–making money when nobody else could. Cabot treats its landowners well, cares about the environment, gives big money to local nonprofit causes, and in general is the best kind of corporate citizen anybody could wish for. We suppose it was only a matter of time before Cabot became a target in this merger mania we’re currently going through. This morning Cabot announced a “merger of equals” with Cimarex, a big driller in the Permian and Midcontinent. The truth is Cimarex is buying out Cabot.
Headquartered in Philadelphia, PECO (a subsidiary of Exelon Corp.) is Pennsylvania’s largest electric and natural gas utility, delivering power to more than 1.6 million electric customers and more than 532,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania. Last fall PECO floated a plan to build a natural gas reliability station in Marple Township (Delaware County, PA) to allow the company to distribute more natural gas into Delaware County through 11.5 miles of new natural gas main lines. As you might expect, the neighbors in the densely populated area of the reliability station are up in arms over the plan (see 
Back in March MDN told you about supposed violations by Chesapeake Energy of the federal Clean Water Act and the Pennsylvania Clean Streams Law and Dam Safety and Encroachments Act by failing to identify and protect swamps (i.e. wetlands) at a number of oil and gas well sites in Pennsylvania (see 
In March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to enter the public consciousness, some 500 people from labor unions and industry met in Pittsburgh to launch an organization called Pittsburgh Works Together (PWT), dedicated to fighting back against those who want to end southwest PA industries including steel, natural gas, and petrochemicals (see 
All three M-U states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania received a sizable 14 new permits (after receiving 18 permits the previous week). The majority of those permits were for wells on three pads in northeastern PA. Ohio received 3 new permits last week all in one county (Greene) for one driller (Eclipse, now owned by Southwestern Energy) on one well pad. And West Virginia received a sizable 13 new permits with 9 of them split between two well pads for different drillers (Northeast Natural Energy and Tug Hill).
With the Biden administration relentlessly attacking American fossil fuels with bans and over-regulation, and with foreign-backed Big Green groups relentlessly attacking American fossil fuels via lawsuits, sometimes it’s hard not to be pessimistic about our beloved industry. Every now and again we happen across a feel-good fossil fuel story with a happy ending. This is one such story. A long-fought-over wastewater injection well in Plum Boro (Allegheny County, Pittsburgh suburb) is finally open for business, having overcome all sorts of smears and slanders and lawsuits by the enviro-left. Here’s a story where the good guys win!
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to force the state to participate in the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a tax on carbon aimed at eliminating coal and natural gas-fired electric power plants, got a boost yesterday when the state Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Air Quality Technical Advisory Board voted 10-8 in favor of the plan.
One of the ways the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania State Legislature is attempting to block Gov. Tom Wolf from unilaterally forcing the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax scheme, is by voting against any new members to the state’s Public Utility Commission (see 
This Wednesday the radicals of “Protect PT” (Penn Township)–a group funded with shadowy Big Green money–will try to convince the Democrats sitting on Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court to overturn legal and safe shale drilling at well pads in Penn Township (Westmoreland County, PA). Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) previously submitted plans to drill multiple wells on two new well pads in the township. The Zoning Hearing Board approved the plans.
A number of municipalities (mainly cities) in states like California, Washington, and Massachusetts have passed local ordinances banning the use of natural gas in new or refurbished construction. That is, they’ve become energy bigots, institutionalizing discrimination against forms of energy they irrationally hate. Prejudice and discrimination (hatred) are always ugly, whatever form they take, whether against other humans or against energy sources. Some states have passed new laws to prohibit local municipalities from engaging in energy discrimination and natural gas bans. Pennsylvania is the latest to consider such protection.
It honestly is one of the most bizarre things we’ve ever seen. The largest publicly-owned natural gas utility in the country, Philadelphia Gas Works, is actually looking at and considering the best ways it can kill itself. The implications are many. First and foremost it’s completely racist, as ending the sale of natural gas so will skyrocket the utility bills of its 500,000 customers, who are primarily people of color (44% African American, 14% Latino, 7% Asian = 65% in total). There is no way a majority of Philly residents can afford to wholesale replace their stoves and furnaces at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. Yet there’s no mention of racism in reporting on this bizarre issue.
Once again the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is falling down on the job. For years we’ve covered the news that DEP delays in issuing simple permits for erosion and sediment control are taking far longer–months longer–than they should. A Chapter 102 Erosion and Sedimentation permit is supposed to take 14 days to review and issue. In the Southwest DEP office, it’s taking an average of five months! Enough is enough. It’s time to pass legislation (one of three bills) now working its way through the PA House and Senate that allows private, third-party engineers to review and approve permits since the DEP (under Sec. Pat McDonnell) is incapable of doing its job.