Sen. Joe Manchin Remains the Only Barrier to Left’s Energy Oblivion
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia remains the only thing standing in the way of the Democrats’ far-left, socialist plan to remake the country using a pair of bills that will spend over $5 trillion of your tax money. Both the infrastructure bill and the so-called budget reconciliation bill contain new regulations and laws that directly, nakedly, attack the oil and gas industry. The Democrats want to end fossil fuels–a truly frightening (and stupid) plan. Manchin is holding them back. Will he cave?
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Yesterday Antero Resources announced the publication of its 2020 ESG Report (environmental, social, governance) highlighting a focus on People, Performance, and Purpose. The report details Antero Resources’ ongoing commitment to the communities in which it operates, safe operations, environmental excellence, and strong governance. Frankly, we could care less about ESG programs–an attempt to impress people who will never be impressed with the extraordinary efforts made by fossil fuel companies to respect the environment. What caught our eye in Antero’s report is the amount of money the company invested in West Virginia and Ohio, where it drills for liquids and gas.
Last week Pennsylvania issued just 8 new permits for Marcellus/Utica drilling, down a bit from previous weeks. Ohio issued 10 new permits. We don’t often see Ohio issue more permits in a week than Pennsylvania. Finally, West Virginia issued just 1 permit for new shale drilling last week.
A healthy number of permits were issued to drill new shale wells across the Marcellus/Utica region last week. Pennsylvania issued 19 new permits in both southwest and northeast PA. Ohio issued 8 new permits, all of them to a single driller (Ascent Resources) for two well pads in two different counties. West Virginia issued 9 new permits–all but 2 of them were issued to Antero Resources in Tyler County.
In early 2019, EQT, the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. (and in the Marcellus/Utica) settled a class action lawsuit in West Virginia with landowners and rights owners ending EQT’s practice of post-production deductions from royalty checks (see 
Sometimes it seems like a full-time job running around and setting the record straight, correcting the outright lies and half-truths spun by the wacko environmental left. For example, shoveling up the messes made by the Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI), a far-left, hyper-partisan, nonprofit organization. Last month ORVI peddled falsehoods at a hearing convened by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management which is conducting a study on the prospects for a petrochemical industry in the Marcellus/Utica (see 
We don’t often use material from the known fake news source called the New York Times, but here we are using a second article from the NYT in one day! The article (below) does its best to shred the reputation and credibility of Joe Manchin, senior U.S. Senator from West Virginia. We have to confess we’re a bit wary of Manchin given his tendency to cave under pressure and vote with the Democrat Party line. But Manchin is all that currently stands in the way of Joe Biden and the Democrat Party’s plan to eliminate natural gas (and coal), phasing both out as energy sources to produce electricity, part of the $3.5 trillion so-called budget reconciliation bill.
In April, on the last day of the West Virginia legislative session for 2021, the West Virginia Senate unanimously passed House Bill (HB) 2581 which changes how the State Tax Department values producing oil and gas wells for property tax purposes (see 
The Route 2 | I-68 Authority in West Virginia wants to expand Route 2 to four lanes from Parkersburg, WV to Chester, WV, and to extend Interstate 68 from I-79 near Morgantown, WV westward to WV Route 2 along the Ohio River Valley, some 73 miles (see 
Southwestern Energy, which is one of the biggest Marcellus/Utica drillers, previously applied for a conditional use permit from the City of Weirton, WV that would allow them to build a well pad and drill several wells on it all within the city limits of Weirton. The request came before the Weirton Zoning Board of Appeals in August but the board delayed a decision until this month, September. Following almost three hours of comments and testimony yesterday, the Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously voted down Southwestern’s request–a decidedly unfriendly gesture by the normally gas-friendly municipalities in WV.
In January MDN told you that UGI Corporation, one of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility companies, wants to buy Mountaineer Gas Company, one of West Virginia’s largest natural gas utility companies, for $540 million (see 
Yesterday the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a puff piece praising Brian Anderson, director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and now the head of the Biden administration’s Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization, an effort to kill the use of fossil fuels (see