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…
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Must be Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (Republican in Name Only) didn’t read the rest of the memo from his Big Green pals. You may recall Hogan, a first-term Republican, campaigned on a platform of supporting natural gas development in his state and after getting elected, he caved to radical Big Green extremists and signed a law that bans fracking (see 
Anti-fossil fuel activists attempting to stop the unstoppable Rover Pipeline are doing their best to smear and prejudice people against the project. Rover has had its share of problems. We’ve chronicled those problems–like leaking 2 million gallons of drilling mud in Ohio when performing underground horizontal directional drilling (see 
The West Virginia Public Service Commission will host a public hearing tomorrow on a proposed power plant in Brooke County, WV. The 750-megawatt Marcellus-fired electric plant will be built by Energy Solutions Consortium–the father and son team of Andrew and Matthew Dorn (based in Buffalo, NY). The Dorns are currently building another gas-fired plant–in Marshall County (see 
Anti-fossil fuelers, aided and abetted by liberal local media, continues the drumbeat to pressure the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality to either block, or greatly slow down, approvals needed to build both the $5 billion, 594-mile Dominion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project and the $3.5 billion, 301-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Both pipelines start in West Virginia. ACP crosses through Virginia and stretches into North Caroline. MVP terminates in southern Virginia. Some oppose the projects due to an insane hatred of fossil fuels (the same fossil fuels that make their existence and protest possible). Others don’t want a pipeline cutting across their favorite horse pasture. Ruins the look, ya know. There have been a blizzard of lawsuits and legal actions to try and stop both projects (see 
Fantastic news to report! Dominion has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to begin flowing feed gas (for testing purposes) to parts of the Cove Point LNG export facility. We are now getting close to startup at the facility, which is supposed to go online in the fourth quarter of this year. Cove Point sits along the coast of Maryland. Dominion began work on the $3.5 billion plant in 2015. When complete, the plant will liquefy and export 1.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus/Utica Shale gas to India and Japan. Currently there is only one export facility in the U.S. in operation, along the coast of Louisiana (Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass). That one facility has fundamentally changed the economics of LNG (liquefied natural gas) here at home and around the world. Just imagine what another 1.8 Bcf/d will do! And it’s ALL from our region. Here’s more about the good news that Cove Point is ready to begin testing…
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 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: 2nd Circuit decision may not mark the end of the Constitution Pipeline after all; OH Gov Kasich not backing nuclear bailout; Indiana PA Chamber goes to Louisiana, has eyes opened re petchem; WV Congressman advocates for ethane storage; new chief of staff at FERC; the Golden Age of natgas; peak oil demand, again; electric vehicle prospects; first LNG cargo reaches Lithuania; and more!
In a disappointing, but perhaps not all that unexpected decision (full copy below), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Friday ruled against the Constitution Pipeline and their lawsuit against the Cuomo-corrupted New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The DEC dithered, for years, on a decision about whether or not to grant stream-crossing permits (Section 401 permits, a federal Clean Water Act thing) to the Constitution Pipeline, a $683 million, 124-mile pipeline from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY carrying Marcellus gas. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authorized the project in 2014. Since that time the DEC delayed, and eventually denied permits for the project (see 
The West Virginia Legislature has appointed a new Joint Committee on Natural Gas Development, composed of Senators and Delegates, to put their collective heads together to see how they can encourage more oil and gas development in the Mountain State. The committee will meet tomorrow for the first time. The effort is being supported by the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA). In general, it certainly seems like a good idea–WV needs more drilling. However, WVONGA plans to use the committee as a platform to push its “modernized mineral efficiency laws”–i.e. forced pooling lite. As we reported last week, WVONGA is making an all-out push for new forced pooling laws in 2018 (see 
We always find it sad when a company builds a manufacturing plant in another country, closing one here at home (and firing the people who worked there). Such is the case in Carroll County, OH. Automotive supplier dlhBowles recently opened a 280,000-square-foot assembly plant in Reynosa, Mexico–and closed a plant in Carroll County. The company manufactures things like hoses and nozzles for windshield washer systems. Reynosa says closing the Carroll plant and laying off the 94 people who worked there is not “directly related” to opening the Mexico plant. Right. But officials in Carroll aren’t bitter. They believe the Utica Shale and various pipelines running through the area will result in new plastics companies (and other types of companies in the downstream) locating in Carroll. Buh bye Reynosa. Hello new manufacturers with the foresight and intelligence to set up shop in red-hot eastern Ohio…
Politicians are once again demagoguing and attempting to demonize “Big Oil & Gas” over the taxation issue. No, we’re not talking about severance taxes. We’re talking about accounting deductions that oil and gas companies take to reflect depletion of assets. Flying under the banner of “eliminating tax loopholes,” some politicians want to strip away deductions from oil and gas companies–while leaving the same deductions in place for other industries. It is the worst kind of sleazy attack on the o&g industry. William Shughart, professor at Utah State University, brings us up to speed on the latest under-the-radar attack on the shale industry…