PA Bills Would Hold Radical Pipeline Trespassers Accountable
We have an ongoing problem. Some of the more radical protesters in the “environmentalist” movement–those who tend toward anarchy–illegally enter work sites for pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure under construction, and block the work being done in an attempt to cost companies money. Typically they chain themselves to a piece of equipment with a device that takes law enforcement authorities hours to remove. They cause delays and endanger themselves and workers and law enforcement with their illegal actions. It’s time to make the penalties for these dangerous, willful and illegal acts stiffer. Pennsylvania State Senators have introduced a pair of bills to help put a stop to this nonsense.
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In yet another sign of a slowdown in Marcellus/Utica drilling, a company that manufactures drilling equipment and fracking pumps, Gardner Denver, is laying off 45 employees at its plant located in Tipton, PA (near Altoona). That’s two-thirds of its local workforce. Why? According to a company rep, because of the slowdown in drilling and because of ongoing depressed gas prices.
In September MDN brought you news of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruling that disallows PennEast Pipeline from using the delegated power of eminent domain to cross properties either owned by, or with easements granted to, the state of New Jersey (see 
In April, Pennsylvania State Rep. Mike Turzai, Speaker of the House, and a group of conservative Republicans, announced a plan for the future of PA (see 
Here’s how it works for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “reporters” Don Hopey and David Templeton. A group of fellow travelers who hate the fossil fuel (shale) industry as much as they do gather at a small, pre-announced meeting, preferably at a school, and make wild, unsubstantiated, frankly reckless (actionable?) accusations against the “hated” shale drilling industry. Stenographers Hopey and Templeton are there to record it all and share it with the general public. That’s what happened yesterday at meeting in Washington County, PA.
It’s not often (these days) we come across a new instance of publicly-known leasing terms in the Marcellus/Utica. We like to highlight such cases when we see them. In Saturday’s Pennsylvania Bulletin, the state Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), the agency in charge of state-owned land, published details of a newly signed lease for 40.6 acres of creekbed in Greene County, PA. The DCNR got its standard $4,000 per acre signing bonus plus will get a 20% royalty from any gas produced. Who did they lease to? And why do we object to this practice so strenuously? To learn those details, you need an 
For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, PA, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. Part of the ordinance was tossed, and earlier this year a judge ordered the town to pay $102,000 in legal fees incurred by the operator the town has harmed by its action (see 
The National Association of Royalty Owners’ national convention has been under way this week in Pittsburgh, wrapping up today. One of the big topics at the event has been a push to get a “royalty check stub” bill passed in Pennsylvania. What’s that? It’s a bill that forces drillers to do a better, more detailed job of breaking down royalty statements so landowners/rights owners can see what expenses have been deducted from their royalty checks. Such a bill passed and went into law in West Virginia last year (see 
Yesterday MDN told you that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has gone completely off his rocker with a power-grab to force PA into a regional alliance to tax natural gas-fired electric plants out of existence (see 
Really? Is this what it’s now come to? Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is so desperate to make a criminal case against someone, anyone, in the shale industry, he’s even going after state employees–workers at the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). In a bid to raise his visibility among state voters (so he can run for governor), Shapiro launched an investigation in January looking for environmental “crimes” committed by Range Resources and other shale drillers (see 
If you send your kids to Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) and they take political science classes, you might want to consider another school. One of their professors has just penned what is one of the most outrageous op-eds we’ve ever read. He claims those who operate “fossil fuel” companies–oil and gas companies–and those (of us) who “deny” that there is such as thing as catastrophic man-made global warming caused by burning fossil fuels, are guilty of “crimes against humanity.”
On Monday MDN brought you the news that NextEra Energy, largely a renewables company, has made the bold move of buying 39% of the Central Penn Line, otherwise known as Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project (see 
In September 2018, the 1,050-megawatt Moxie Freedom Marcellus-fired power plant located near Wilkes-Barre, PA (Luzerne County) went online, feeding the electricity it produces into the local power grid (see 
EQT Corp. is offering to sublease “more space” at its downtown Pittsburgh headquarters building. Back in April, before the change in leadership at the top, EQT offered up to 46,000 square feet of space to lease at its massive 250,000 square foot building known as EQT Plaza, located at 625 Liberty Ave. (see