PA Court Rejects Radicalized Kids’ Global Warming Lawsuit
Last August MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by a group of left coast radicalized children who want to force the federal government to become communist and “force action” on mythical climate change (see Group of Kids Sues U.S. Govt to Force Action on “Climate Change”). In January of this year, we brought you an update, telling you that radicalized, fringe Catholic groups had joined the cause with the ignorant children (see Climate Change Lawsuit by Radicalized Children Gets Interesting). What we didn’t know is that at the same time manipulating adults on the Left Coast were (ab)using children to file their lawsuit, the same thing was happening in Pennsylvania. A group of minors, being manipulated by radical adults, filed their own version of the same lawsuit. In PA the lawsuit asked the court to use the state’s so-called Environmental Rights Amendment to force the Executive Branch (i.e. the governor) to develop a plan to protect these poor, defenseless children against mythological man-made global warming. That is, it was a lawsuit to stop all drilling for oil and natural gas–flying under the guise of protecting PA citizens from “climate change.” On Tuesday, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania rejected this nonsensical lawsuit, tossing it out (full copy of the decision below). Now the radicalized children, still being manipulated by radicalized adults, are appealing the case to the PA Supreme Court…
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National Fuel Gas (NFG), the Buffalo-based utility giant with both a drilling subsidiary (Seneca Resources) and a midstream/pipeline subsidiary (Empire Pipeline) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March 2015 for a pipeline project they call Northern Access 2016 (later renamed to simply Northern Access Project, dropping the “2016” part). The $455 million project 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 (see 
A small group of ignorant children (look the photo) preened and pretended to actually know something when they marched outside of the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery in South Philly where PES would like to expand by leasing an extra 200 acres at the Southport facility. The children blocked traffic causing a backup, making drivers unhappy. The kids also prevented trucks from entering and exiting the facility–for about 10 minutes. Philly police watched and did nothing. Sycophantic media (StateImpact) claimed there were “around 100” but a picture of the event shows nine (that we can see), none of whom appear to be old enough to drink beer. PES is pushing the concept of making Philadelphia an “energy hub” and they (PES) want to ship Marcellus Shale gas from the Southport facility location after piping it there from other parts of PA. A number of people are bidding on the property and it’s not at all a foregone conclusion that PES will get it (see 
MDN editor Jim Willis grew up going to auctions. Sometimes it was a farm auction–equipment like tractors and balers and manure spreaders. Sometimes a livestock auction–cows and horses and pigs and goats. But most often it was attending the local bric-a-brac auction on Saturday nights in South New Berlin (NY)–at Toby’s Auction Center. If we close our eyes and imagine it, we can still “see” the sights and sounds (and smells!) of the auction, where everything from cassette players to zucchini squash to antique Japanese pottery was sold. You can tell a lot about economic conditions from the local auction–including equipment auctions in the oil and gas industry. At a recent o&g equipment auction in Indiana County, PA, a couple of things were apparent: (1) the conventional drilling industry in PA, NY and elsewhere is struggling, and (2) it’s still a buyer’s market for drilling equipment–which indicates the turnaround hasn’t arrived quite yet…
Although he still wants to tax the Marcellus Shale industry out of his state, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (with the dubious title of “most liberal governor in the U.S.,” see 
In June Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf was forced to accept half a loaf–he agreed to reject new drilling regulations for the conventional drilling industry in the state, if lawmakers would allow his administration’s rework of shale drilling regulations to take effect (see 
On Friday MDN reported Southwestern Energy’s second quarter 2016 update, with indications that things are turning around for the company and that they intend to re-start their drilling program in the Marcellus (see 
You’ve heard of “whitewashing” before. How about “title washing?” No, we hadn’t either. But this funny sounding practice has a great deal to do with mineral rights in Pennsylvania, with possible implications for landowners and drillers. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a 5-0 ruling last week that upholds the practice of title washing in the Keystone State. What in the world is it, and how does it affect landowners and drillers? In the case of Herder Spring Hunting Club v. Keller there had been a tax sale in 1935 for a property in Centre County, PA where the mineral rights had previously been separated. Prior to 1948 if mineral rights that had been separated were not properly recorded (it was incumbent on the owner of the subsurface rights to ensure the sale was recorded at the assessor’s office), and the surface land was later sold, both the mineral rights (subsurface) and the surface land became part of the sale. That, in essence, was title washing. After 1948 a law prevented this from happening, so such cases only apply to land sold before 1948. The legal beagles at Babst Calland have a good overview of what the practice of title washing is, and how the Court’s decision affects Pennsylvanians. We also have a copy of the decision embedded below…
In May MDN brought you the news that a researcher at West Virginia University believes an natural gas liquids (NGL) storage hub is what the Marcellus/Utica region really needs (see 
An update on Spectra Energy’s Texas Eastern Transmission’s (TETCO) “Delmont Line 27” which exploded in Westmoreland County, PA on April 29 (see 
The anti-frackers at the Johns Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health are out with another bought-and-paid-for (by anti-drillers) “study” that implies the presence of fracking in Pennsylvania leads to causing or making worse asthma attacks. You may recall the same group of antis pushed out a study last October that supposedly shows fracking leads to premature births (see