Statewide PA

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    Dela. Riverkeeper Loses Fed. Court Case Against NEPA Pipeline

    In March, Big Green group THE Delaware Riverkeeper (leftist political lobbying arm for the William Penn Foundation that funds it) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third District requesting the court overturn a Clean Water Act permit granted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Kinder Morgan’s Orion Project in northeast Pennsylvania. Yesterday, in a humiliating defeat, the Third Circuit rejected Riverkeeper’s request and ruled the Army Corps was well within its right to grant the permit (full copy of the ruling below). In October 2015, Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) filed their official, full application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking approval for the Orion Project (see Tennessee Gas Pipeline Files PA Orion Project with FERC). The project will cost $143 million and construct 13 miles of “looping” pipeline in Pike and Wayne counties, Pennsylvania. The project will boost capacity on the TGP by another 135 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), allowing TGP to pump more Marcellus Shale gas to Mid-Atlantic and New England states. The project received full FERC approval in February of this year (see TGP Orion Project in NEPA Gets Final Approval by FERC). The project remains on track to be built/online in June 2018…
    Read More “Dela. Riverkeeper Loses Fed. Court Case Against NEPA Pipeline”

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    More Pushback on PA Senate Plan to Fix Slow DEP Permit Reviews

    There is a growing storm of opposition to a plan put forward by the Pennsylvania Senate in the current budget bill to fix the problem of long delays in issuing permits by the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). Enough traitorous Republicans in the Senate joined with just about all of the Democrats in the Senate to pass a budget bill that slaps new taxes on natural gas–a severance tax on drillers and a gross receipts tax on consumers (see Traitorous PA Senate Republicans Pass Severance Tax Bill). As an olive branch to the industry, Senate Republicans also included (in the budget bill) fixes to the slow DEP, to speed things up (see PA Senate’s “Olive Branch” of “Relaxed Regulations” for Drillers). The DEP has a policy of issuing erosion and sedimentation permits 14 days from the date of application. These types of permits are common and necessary when building roads, well pads, etc. Lately it has taken the DEP 250 days to issue those permits! Permits related to drilling wells are supposed to take no more than 45 days. Those permits now average 93 days. The DEP is hopelessly backlogged–and it’s getting worse. The Senate olive branch was meant to address this serious issue. But of course antis have (and continue) to come out in force to oppose the fix. Now, an assortment of previous Secretaries of the DEP have also voiced their concerns about the plan–including a voice we highly respect, Michael Krancer…
    Read More “More Pushback on PA Senate Plan to Fix Slow DEP Permit Reviews”

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    PA Senate Slips Anti-Landowner Measure into State Budget Bill

    Not only did the Pennsylvania Senate pull a real boner by voting for a severance tax and gross receipts tax (see Traitorous PA Senate Republicans Pass Severance Tax Bill), they also slipped another provision in the PA budget bill that, until now, has gone unnoticed. This new provision has big implications for both landowners and drillers. The Senate slipped in Section 1610 (see the language below) which changes established lease law with respect to oil and gas wells that no longer produce anything. Under existing law, when an oil or gas well stops producing–and the landowner quits getting royalty checks–the lease is considered terminated. Done. Finished. Under Section 1610, drillers can resurrect those dead leases under a couple of conditions. If the landowner doesn’t officially state “your lease is now dead since you’re not producing anything” a driller quick-like-a-bunny restarts production at the well and sends the landowner a check, it would re-start (or continue) the existing lease with its existing terms. Or if the driller sends a notice to the landowner stating its intention to drill a new well on the property, and if the landowner doesn’t object (given a 3-month time limit), the driller is free to begin drilling a NEW well, under the OLD lease terms. Section 1610 really stinks, in our humble opinion. It means a driller can drill a new shale well after an old conventional/vertical well quits producing–without having to sign a new lease or pay a new bonus or negotiate a new royalty rate. Doesn’t seem right to us!…
    Read More “PA Senate Slips Anti-Landowner Measure into State Budget Bill”

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    Businesses Learn How to Get a Piece of $6B Shell Cracker Pie

    As the mighty $6 billion Shell ethane cracker begins construction in Beaver County, PA, plenty of local (and regional) businesses are asking the question: How can we get in on the action? How can we win contracts for goods and services? The Beaver County Chamber of Commerce aimed to help answer that question yesterday at a 3-hour event held at the Club at Shadow Lakes. The “Doing Business in the Era of Shell” seminar drew a crowd of 300+. Some of the speakers were from Louisiana–where they went through a similar process when SASOL built an $11 billion petrochemical project there. Here is some of the wisdom passed along to those who attended…
    Read More “Businesses Learn How to Get a Piece of $6B Shell Cracker Pie”

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    PA State Senator Floats Bill to Make Criminal Protesters Pay

    PA residents in Lancaster County have a keeper in freshman Senator Scott Martin. Back in May MDN reported that Martin was cooking up legislation to send the cleanup bill for illegal protests–to the protesters (see PA State Senator Introducing Law to Send Protesters Cleanup Bill). The bill is now here–Senate Bill (SB) 754 (full copy below). Sen. Martin has refined his ideas. Law and order folks (those of us who are sane, rational people) are tired of the lawless actions by a few who oppose pipelines, drilling, Trump…whatever. Sen. Martin and those in the drilling/pipeline industry fully support free speech the right of antis to make fools of themselves. It provides entertainment! What Sen. Martin and those in the industry don’t support, however, is when paid protesting thugs break the law by destroying property and blocking access to legal businesses attempting to do legal work. We saw how so-called environmentalists (who were actually anarchists) “protested” in South Dakota–leaving behind an environmental disaster that cost millions to clean up–far worse than any pipeline spill would have been. Police and first responders were deployed–at a cost of millions of dollars. South Dakota bore most of the cost. That is, taxpayers paid for it. Under Sen. Martin’s bill, if protesters break the law while protesting in PA, incidents that require police and other first responders to handle the situation, those law-breaking protesters will pay the cost of said police and first responders. WE LOVE IT! It’s about time people were actually held accountable for their illegal actions…
    Read More “PA State Senator Floats Bill to Make Criminal Protesters Pay”

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    Faux “Conservative” Group Campaigns Against Fixing PA’s Broken DEP

    A national group of antis calling themselves “conservative” are attempting to meddle in the affairs of Pennsylvania. If you’ve been reading MDN for any time, you know about the current huge, stinking mess of a budget in Pennsylvania. Republicans, which control both the House and Senate, passed an unbalanced budget of $32 billion. Problem is, there’s only $30 billion of projected revenue. So after passing the spending part of the budget, they now have to “come up with” $2 billion to cover the difference. The pressure has been intense to punish the successful Marcellus industry by stealing even more of their money (PA already takes an overly generous portion of their profits). Senate Republicans caved to the pressure and floated a spending plan that includes a severance tax (see Traitorous PA Senate Republicans Pass Severance Tax Bill). The House, so far, has resisted the siren song that wants to lure them onto the rocks of killing the Marcellus industry. So far. The Marcellus industry has, for years, complained about the sloooooooow response times in approving drilling permits by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). As an olive branch to the industry, Senate Republicans also included (in the budget bill) fixes to the slow DEP, to speed things up (see PA Senate’s “Olive Branch” of “Relaxed Regulations” for Drillers). Now we hear from some national group, calling themselves Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, that the PA Senate plan to fix the DEP will create an environmental holocaust. Let us assure you, there is nothing “conservative” about Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. They are Big Green liberals pretending to be conservative. They’re now spending big money (from their Big Green friends) to advertise, in a bid to pressure the legislature to dump the “fix the DEP” plan…
    Read More “Faux “Conservative” Group Campaigns Against Fixing PA’s Broken DEP”

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    PA Gov. Wolf’s Non-Response Response on Atlantic Sunrise Delays

    Over the past year or more MDN editor Jim Willis has signed numerous petitions supporting the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project–but it wasn’t until he signed one at a recent Williams event that the got a response from Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf. Atlantic Sunrise is a $3 billion, 198-mile natural gas pipeline project, most of which will get built in northeast Pennsylvania. The project is ready to begin construction, NOW, but still needs a few permits from the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). In an attempt to get the DEP (and Gov. Wolf) moving, Williams co-hosted an event in July to pressure the DEP and Wolf into granting final permits (see Atlantic Sunrise Pipe Rally: ‘Time to Kick Politicians in the Ass’). As guests entered the event, held at the Shadowbrook Golf Course in Wyoming County, PA, they were asked to sign a petition supporting the project. The petitions were delivered to Gov. Wolf and the DEP. Perhaps signing a paper petition, instead of an online/electronic petition, did the trick. MDN received a form letter email response from Gov. Wolf (below). In his response, Gov. Wolf says he supports pipeline development, but that he also supports “strong regulations” to protect people’s health, water, air, blah-biddy blah blah. It is a masterful example of saying nothing at all, while trying to appear you’re saying something. Here’s what we “heard” in Wolf’s response: Screw you–the project will get approved when it gets approved and I don’t care when that is”…
    Read More “PA Gov. Wolf’s Non-Response Response on Atlantic Sunrise Delays”

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    Philly Refinery “Mired in Debt” – Fights for Survival

    In 2012, Sunoco inked a deal with The Carlyle Group to form a joint venture to keep Philadelphia’s historic refinery operating (see Sunoco & Carlyle Group Ink Joint Venture for Philly Refinery). The jv was called Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), and its CEO was the charismatic Philip L. Rinaldi, who was called “fossil Phil.” The refinery flourished–and saved 850 jobs. But PES hasn’t been without its challenges. They tried to expand their operation at the Southport Marine site in Philadelphia by leasing an additional 200 acres to build a terminal for shale oil imports and exports. But in the end, Gov. Wolf (a dunce) decided the land next to the refinery would be better used as a parking lot for imported cars coming from Japan (see PA Gov Wolf Kills Plan for PES Refinery Expansion in Philadelphia). Late last year fossil Phil decided to hang it up and retire (see PES’ Phil Rinaldi Stepping Down; Will Philly Energy Hub Die?). Can’t blame him. PES is now, according to Bloomberg, in a fight for its survival. The culprit is the exorbitant (we’d call it extortionist) fees PES must pay the federal government for something called Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs. What are they? And will they spell the end of PES?…
    Read More “Philly Refinery “Mired in Debt” – Fights for Survival”

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    PA Rep. Ortitay Intros Watered-Down Minimum Royalty Bill

    Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Ortitay, Republican from South Fayette (Washington & Allegheny Counties), PA who replaced Jesse White in January 2015 (see Pro-Driller Ortitay Replaces Anti-Driller White in PA House) has introduced a new bill in the PA House to bridge the gap between landowners who want a guaranteed minimum royalty of 12.5% regardless of post-production costs, and drillers who adamantly oppose a guaranteed minimum royalty. Rep. Garth Everett, Republican from Lycoming County, has been the champion of landowners and their quest to stop what they see as an abuse of the contracts they signed by implementing a state-mandated 12.5% minimum royalty–even if post-production costs eat into it (see PA Rep. Garth Everett Reintroduces Minimum Royalty Bill, 3rd Time). Landowners and groups representing them, like the National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO), point to abuses by companies like Chesapeake Energy and claim some drillers cook up deals with pipeline/processing companies to overcharge, deducting it from royalty checks, and then getting the money back from those pipeline companies via investments. Kind of a kick-back scheme. Drillers maintain you can’t upend legal contracts in response to one or two rotten apples in the barrel. Ortitay believes he can navigate the middle ground, proposing a bill that will require drillers to itemize the deductions made from royalty checks, and prevent drillers from sending landowners a bill, which is beyond-words offensive. Can you imagine any landowner signing a lease that requires the landowner to pay the driller when prices go low? It’s ludicrous, and Ortitay’s bill, House Bill (HB) 1708 aims to fix it…
    Read More “PA Rep. Ortitay Intros Watered-Down Minimum Royalty Bill”

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    More Evidence PA House Repubs Beginning to Cave on Severance Tax

    We continue to read articles about the ongoing effort by Pennsylvania Democrats and some squishy Republicans to slap a severance tax on top of an existing impact tax on natural gas drilling in the Keystone State. As we pointed out yesterday, Philadelphia teacher’s unions are in the forefront of a plan to grab money from drillers and funnel it into the pockets of their members (see Drumbeat Continues: Tax PA Shale & Give Money to Teacher’s Unions). The PA Senate cooked up a horrible plan to implement a “modest” severance tax, along with a gross receipts tax that will tax natural gas again, at the consumer level (see Traitorous PA Senate Republicans Pass Severance Tax Bill). The PA House has stood firm, thus far, against the plan. But then we read PA House Majority Leader Dave Reed is beginning to cave (see PA House Beginning to Cave on Severance Tax? Maybe…). We’re now reading about other members, people we long thought solid, like Rep. Garth Everett (Lycoming County) who now says “The new tax on drilling remains an option.” REALLY disappointing, Rep. Everett. The way the conversation is now going, the House doesn’t have the stomach to slap a gross receipts tax (GRT) on natural gas, phones and electric–but they are A.OK with a severance tax. Since the GRT, under the traitorous Senate Republican plan, is supposed to provide around $400 million in revenue and the severance tax $100 million, what happens without the GRT? Will House Republicans ratchet up the severance tax even more? It’s rapidly turning into a mess. Below is the latest chatter we’ve found, along with a new letter from the Marcellus Shale Coalition to the House leadership warning of the precarious situation a new severance tax will create for future job and economic growth in PA…
    Read More “More Evidence PA House Repubs Beginning to Cave on Severance Tax”

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    PennEast Pipeline Asks FERC for Expedited Final Approval

    Jeff Tittel, the head of the New Jersey Sierra Club, last week called President Trump a “fossil fool in the White House” and panned Trump for doing his Constitutional duty in appointing new members to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Tittel’s latest titillation came in response to PennEast Pipeline sending a letter to FERC last Thursday requesting the agency move forward posthaste with granting the project a final certificate to proceed to construction–something that terrifies Tittel and his sidekick, THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum. Tittel and van Rossum have staked their reputations and the reputations of their anti-fossil fuel groups on stopping PennEast. So once the bulldozers fire up and begin digging trenches, it’s all over for them. They might actually have to find real jobs. Below is PennEast’s request to FERC along with the instantaneous (and paranoid) reaction from several Big Green radical groups….
    Read More “PennEast Pipeline Asks FERC for Expedited Final Approval”

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    PA’s Regulatory Mess Slows Marcellus Drilling – Time to Fix It

    Since Tom Wolf assumed office as governor of Pennsylvania in January 2015, the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been in a downward spiral when it comes to the speed with which they approve permits for the Marcellus Shale industry. The DEP has a policy of issuing erosion and sedimentation permits 14 days from the date of application. These types of permits are common and necessary when building roads, well pads, etc. Lately it has taken the DEP 250 days to issue those permits! Permits related to drilling wells are supposed to take no more than 45 days. Those permits now average 93 days. The DEP is hopelessly backlogged–and it’s getting worse. When PA’s traitorous Republican Senate sold out and signed on to a Marcellus Shale severance tax back in July, the Senate also approved (as part of the budget bill) fixes to speed up the permitting process (see PA Senate’s “Olive Branch” of “Relaxed Regulations” for Drillers). Since DEP can’t seem to fix its own mess, the Senate is willing to “lend a hand” to help them get it done. Kathryn Klaber, former president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition and now CEO of The Klaber Group, writes about the necessary revisions to PA (and the country’s) regulatory mess. She makes the point loud and clear that tweaking regulations is not an attack on the environment, as radicals seek to spin it…
    Read More “PA’s Regulatory Mess Slows Marcellus Drilling – Time to Fix It”

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    Drumbeat Continues: Tax PA Shale & Give Money to Teacher’s Unions

    The steady, daily drumbeat coming from mainstream (i.e. fake) news outlets in Pennsylvania is that the PA House of Representatives is sitting on its hands, dithering, not doing anything about the so-called budget crisis. The fix is, of course, for the House to accept and pass the ludicrous plan from traitorous Senate Republicans that will tax natural gas a total of four times, with four separate taxes (see PA Business Roars Disapproval of Senate’s Plan to Tax Energy 4X). As we have pointed out, for years, PA Gov. Tom Wolf wants to slap a severance tax on top of an impact tax on Marcellus gas as a way of raising money to give to teacher’s unions (i.e. “education”). We’ve shouted this until we are hoarse, yet no one seems to notice that Wolf is attempting political payback by penalizing one industry in favor of another. From time to time we revisit the topic, using mainstream media’s own words against them–to indict them. Here’s yet another example. So-called Rev. Gregory Holston (from Philadelphia) in addressing a rally attempted to make the case that not adopting a Marcellus gas tax is tantamount to racism–because educational funding in PA is “unfair” and the state doesn’t spend enough on minorities in places like Philly. Standing right next to the “Reverend” at the rally was the president of the Philadelphia Teacher’s Union who said, “we are more than happy to lead the charge for a shale tax.” Do you need any more proof to believe our statement that the severance tax is nothing more than a way to funnel money to teacher’s unions?…
    Read More “Drumbeat Continues: Tax PA Shale & Give Money to Teacher’s Unions”

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    One of Nation’s Largest NatGas Microgrids Coming to Philly Navy Yard

    We’re starting to see more and more news about natural gas-fired microgrids, used for “peaking”. Microgrids are small electric generating plants, most often powered by natural gas. They usually produce a few megawatts of electricity. The concept of “peaking” means that during times of high electricity demand, these small microgrids kick on and produce electricity to help meet the demand. Although New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo doesn’t want fracking in the Empire State, he’s in the midst of paying for 11 microgrids throughout the state–all of them using natural gas, mostly fracked gas from Pennsylvania (see NY Building Not Just One, but Eleven (!) NatGas-Fired Micogrids). These microgrids are an important new market for Marcellus/Utica Shale gas. So we perked up when we spotted a story about and press release from Ameresco, headquartered in Massachusetts, that is building a new 6-megawatt microgrid for peaking electricity at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. It will, according to Ameresco, “anchor one of the largest private microgrids in the United States.” Although the announcement doesn’t say, we’re 99.99% sure the gas that will feed it will come from PA’s Marcellus Shale. In addition to the microgrid in Philly, Ameresco also announced a contract in northeast PA, with Luzerne Community College (Wilkes-Barre) to replace 21 outdated electric-resistance heating Roof Top Units (RTU), Heating and Ventilation Units (H&V), and Air Handling Units (AHU) with 21 new, natural gas-fired RTU’s and AHU’s. Yep, you read that right–dumping electric units for natgas units. How “cool” is that? (Pun intended)…
    Read More “One of Nation’s Largest NatGas Microgrids Coming to Philly Navy Yard”

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    PA House Beginning to Cave on Severance Tax? Maybe…

    MDN has covered the ongoing budget debate in Pennsylvania for months. The PA Senate and House are controlled by Republican majorities–but not necessarily conservative majorities. The Republicans fell into a trap set by the Democrats. They passed a ~$32 billion budget with only enough revenue to pay for $30 billion–meaning there’s a $2 billion gap that needs to be filled. Instead of doing the adult thing–cut spending–they decided to allow more spending and figure out how to pay for it “later on.” Later on came, and of course pressure intensified to punish a single industry–natural gas–in order to make up the shortfall. At the end of July MDN brought you the sad news that Republicans in the Senate sold out and voted for a severance tax (see Traitorous PA Senate Republicans Pass Severance Tax Bill). Now the House remains. Will they sell out too? Under the leadership of Speaker Mike Turzai, we had hoped it would not happen. But a comment made yesterday by House Majority Leader Dave Reed has us wondering. Reed said higher taxes on energy sources used by homeowners, like natural gas, telephone, etc. (called a gross receipts tax) is going nowhere fast. However, as for a Marcellus Shale severance tax, Reed indicated they may deal. Although not an exact quote, one news source said Reed expressed this sentiment in his remarks yesterday: “A tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas extraction, which was in the Senate revenue package and projected to raise about $108 million in the current budget year, could come into play in a compromise plan.” The compromise appears to be if Republicans can get Democrats to privatize state liquor sales and/or legalize video gaming terminals, they would be willing to throw the Marcellus industry under the bus with a severance tax. Nice people, those House Republicans. Let’s hope it’s only Reed who feels that way…
    Read More “PA House Beginning to Cave on Severance Tax? Maybe…”

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    Energy Transfer: Rover Phase 1A Done Next Week; ME2 Half Done

    Those opposing two major Energy Transfer projects–Rover Pipeline and Mariner East 2–will not be happy with the good news coming from ET this week. The company issued its second quarter update and held a conference call yesterday. During the call we learned that Phase 1 of Rover, a $3.7 billion, 711-mile Rover Pipeline project that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada, is “substantially complete” with Phase 1A expected to be done next week and online asap. Phase 1A stretches from Cadiz to Defiance, which is most of Ohio. Phase 1B is a short segment from Seneca to Cadiz, and once ET gets clearance from FERC to drill horizontally under Captina Creek, it will only take them about 40 days to complete Phase 1B. If ET can convince FERC to allow them to restart more horizontal directional drilling (HDD) work, Phase 2 will be done soon as well–and the entire project will be up and running by the end of the year. More good news for Rover: The temporary ban on HDD work for Rover in two West Virginia counties that began two weeks ago has now been lifted by the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection. As for ET’s Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project that stretches across Pennsylvania, 80% of the pipeline has been strung, more than 70% is welded and over half has been lowered in and covered up. As we reported yesterday and again today, ET subsidiary Sunoco Logistics Partners (building ME2) has brokered a deal with several radical environmental groups that will slow the project down some, but slow and done is better than no progress at all. Here’s an update on the good news about Rover and ME2…
    Read More “Energy Transfer: Rover Phase 1A Done Next Week; ME2 Half Done”