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…
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A Bloomberg New Service article that is profoundly biased attempts to smear and denigrate the Rover Pipeline, claiming it is “wreaking environmental havoc” and that the project “has racked up more environmental violations than other major interstate natural gas pipelines built in the last two years.” There is no doubt Rover has had its problems, the most infamous being a 2 million gallon drilling mud spill in a wetland near the Tuscarawas River (see 
Yesterday MDN brought you the news that the radical Sierra Club had prevailed in a federal lawsuit against a trio of pipeline projects in the southeast (see 
In March of this year, Williams filed a full, official application for the Northeast Supply Enhancement project (see 
Exactly one week ago MDN brought you the exclusive news of WHO is selling a bunch of conventional wells and leases (and pipelines) located in West Virginia, Ohio and Virginia to Carbon Natural Resources (see 
The editors at the Wall Street Journal have taken the gloves off with respect to the insane policies of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo when it comes to natural gas. Because of Cuomo’s “blockade” of natural gas, by banning fracking and by blocking natural gas pipelines from Pennsylvania into NY, Cuomo stands on the cusp of not only ruining his own state with high prices for natural gas–he’s going to ruin it for other states (like those in New England) as well. Cuomo wanted the Indian Point Nuclear plant closed–and it’s closing. He wants coal plants closed, and they have. But at the same time, the state is adding new natural-gas fired electric generating plants, like the one in Orange County. So far, Cuomo’s corrupted Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has refused to issue a permit for a pipeline to feed the plant (see 
Researchers at West Virginia University have just published a new study that looks at how to reduce methane emissions from LNG (liquefied natural gas) and CNG (compressed natural gas) fleet vehicles in coming years. Today’s heavy-duty natural gas fueled fleet is less than two percent of the total fleet. However, in the next 20 years, the heavy-duty truck fleet is expected to undergo a massive change–to as much as 50% of those vehicles powered by natural gas. That is a HUGE number! And potentially a huge new market for Marcellus/Utica gas! Natgas has a lot of advantages over diesel fuel, but folks are concerned over the mythical global warming potential of methane leaking into the atmosphere. Hence this study which looks at ways to prevent that…
It doesn’t happen often, but MDN editor Jim Willis will take a day off on Friday, Aug. 25, to enjoy a quick getaway with his lovely bride. Heading to beautiful Lancaster County, PA. MDN will be back on Monday bringing you all the non-fake news about the Marcellus/Utica that’s fit to electronically print.
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Youngstown City Council “forced” to accept frack ban charter ballot measure; Portage County, OH builds county’s first CNG station (for $3M); supporters show up in force at Brooke County, WV power plant hearing; Trump’s energy dominance strategy working; next round of LNG export; the guilt-ridden elites behind fractivism; India’s RIL wants to import U.S. ethane; India’s GAIL doesn’t want to import U.S. methane; and more!
Not only did the Pennsylvania Senate pull a real boner by voting for a severance tax and gross receipts tax (see 
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…
Yesterday the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in a case that may have long-term, very negative consequences for the oil and gas industry related to pipeline development. The profoundly litigious (and anti-fossil fuel) radicals of the Sierra Club previously filed a lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) blaming FERC for not considering mythical man-made global warming as it conducted a review of three pipelines in the southeast. The Southeast Market Pipelines Project is an umbrella project for three natural gas pipelines in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. The linchpin of the project is the Sabal Trail pipeline, which travels from Tallapoosa County in eastern Alabama, across southwestern Georgia, and down to Osceola County, Florida, just south of Orlando (nearly 500 miles). Sabal Trail will connect with two other pipelines. The first is the Hillabee Expansion, which will boost the capacity of an existing pipeline in Alabama and feed gas to Sabal Trail’s upstream end for transport to Florida. The downstream end of Sabal Trail connects to the Florida Southeast Connection, linking to a power plant in Martin County, Florida, 120 miles away. MDN has covered Sabal Trail and the Hillabee Expansion because of its potential to flow Marcellus/Utica gas all the way to Florida (see 
Work is now underway on Shell’s $6 billion ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA. What’s the status of the region’s second likely cracker plant, in Ohio? PTT Global Chemical previously announced they are interested in building a $5 billion petrochemical complex, including an ethane cracker, in Belmont County, OH at the site of the old R.E. Burger power plant. However, they have repeatedly said a “final investment decision” (FID) will not happen until the end of 2017. This is the same routine Shell used. In fact, Shell dragged out their FID a lot longer than PTT has. As with Shell, we look for signals that the FID will be a positive decision to move forward with construction. And as with Shell, we see those positive signs. Shell purchased the land for the site before announcing their FID. As we told you last month, PTT has now done the same–buying the former R.E. Burger site from FirstEnergy for $13.8 million (see 
Rover is a $3.7 billion, 711-mile natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada. While Phase 1A of the pipeline is essentially done and ready to begin service by the end of this month (see 
It’s about time our side litigated back! Energy Transfer, the company that built the Dakota Access Pipeline, filed a lawsuit yesterday against rabid, radical “green” organizations including Greenpeace, Earth First! and others, for manufacturing and disseminating “materially false and misleading information about Energy Transfer and the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) for the purpose of fraudulently inducing donations, interfering with pipeline construction activities and damaging Energy Transfer’s critical business and financial relationships.” Because of Greenpeace and other Big Green groups, DAPL was delayed, people were hurt during protests, violent acts were committed, property was damaged and the environment that the protesters profess to love was also damaged. It was a coordinated and organized attack against Energy Transfer, so the federal lawsuit is suing using federal and state racketeering statutes. Energy Transfer says Greenpeace led an organized effort to put eco-terrorists on the ground among regular protesters. Finally! Someone willing to call out these jerks and take the fight back to them! You may wonder why we cover this story here on MDN. Energy Transfer is also building the Rover and Mariner East 2 pipeline projects here in the Marcellus/Utica region. Both projects are vigorously opposed by Big Green groups with paid protesters. This lawsuit puts other Big Green groups on notice–your days of smearing and lying and agitating are over…
On Monday we brought you the sad news that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled against the Constitution Pipeline and their lawsuit against the Cuomo-corrupted New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (see