Scott Pruitt Confirmed to Lead EPA – Swamp Draining Begins
Last Friday Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become the next Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. This is seriously great news. In 2014 MDN editor Jim Willis moderated a panel discussion at an industry summit held in Oklahoma City and heard Mr. Pruitt in person. Here’s what Jim said at that time: “Be sure to watch the very first video on the Midcontinent page. It is the keynote delivered by Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. Jim just about stood up to cheer when he talked. Wow! We later joked (in the third session) that we’d be happy to trade our AG in NY for Pruitt any day of the week. Pruitt’s talk was outstanding.” (See Oil & Gas Awards Summits, Looking Back & Looking Forward [Video]). Ever since he was nominated we’ve been jazzed. The EPA under Obama has been a rogue, out-of-control agency. A labor union representing more than 9,000 EPA employees actively opposed Pruitt’s confirmation. We personally think those 9,000 employees should be fired. Reagan did it with recalcitrant air traffic controllers when their union went on strike–and air traffic control is a whole lot more important when it comes to the daily safety of Americans than the EPA. If the employees try to block Pruitt from doing his job–out they go. At any rate, when the final Senate vote was tallied, RINO Susan Collins of Maine once again showed she’d rather be a Democrat than a Republican, voting against Pruitt. On the other side, two scared-to-death-they-won’t-win-reelection-next-year Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, voted for Pruitt. Mysteriously, the EPA website now welcomes their new Administrator with open arms (funny how that works). Today will be his first day on the job since yesterday was a holiday. Pruitt has already said that Obama’s Clean Power Plan and horrible Waters of the United States regulations are toast. Let the swamp draining begin!…
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The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Northeast natgas pipelines – more capacity needed?; PennEast makes more grants; real estate agency doing well in the Utica Shale; Williamsport newspaper editors disagree with PA Gov Wolf severance tax; pipelines coming to Indiana County; raining on the gas market’s parade; will natgas prices avoid a collapse this year?; here comes the next wave of the oil boom; and more!
On Friday, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection held a hastily-called webinar to discuss findings that, frankly, aren’t all that newsworthy or surprising. After 10 months of study, the DEP has concluded that zipper fracking activities by Hilcorp in Lawrence County, PA “likely” caused a series of earthquakes in April 2016 so minor that nobody could feel them. And the DEP concluded this after 10 months of study, when a week before the DEP itself issued the permits to drill in Lawrence County, Hilcorp drilling was shut down about seven miles away, across the border in Mahoning County, Ohio, for potentially causing low-level earthquakes there (see 
Two weeks ago MDN ran a story about the fact that time has run out on recalcitrant landowners in Ohio who have refused to negotiate with Rover Pipeline–and are now being sued using eminent domain (see 
Third time’s the charm? The Pennsylvania General Assembly convenes for two-year sessions. Almost six years ago during the 2013-2014 session of the General Assembly, PA Rep. Garth Everett introduced “minimum royalty” legislation that would guarantee PA landowners would get minimum royalty payments of 12.5%–regardless of any kind of post-production expenses. It was called House Bill (HB) 1684 and it failed to even come to the floor for a vote (see 
We appear to be in the final death throes of radical environmental efforts to block the construction of Mariner East 2–a $2.5 billion, 306-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through the state of Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia. Last week the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) gave its final approval for the project (see 
In October 2014, Mountaineer Keystone, a pure play Marcellus/Utica driller headquartered in Pittsburgh, bought out PDC Mountaineer for half a billion dollars, creating a company with 181,000 net acres totally focused on the northeast (see 
As we reported last week, a small group of anti-fossil fuelers were planning on grabbing their sleeping bags and heading to Amish country for a sleepover at the Magic Tree House (see 
On Friday midstream (pipeline) company Spectra Energy issued its fourth quarter and full year 2016 update. At the end of update, Spectra provides details on projects it will complete in 2017, those in development to be completed in 2018, and the final category of projects “in development.” It is that last one that caught our eye, because there is one project listed: Access Northeast, the pipeline project Spectra wants to build to bring more Marcellus/Utica shale gas to New England. Our quick take of what Spectra said: When the New England states get their heads out of their…lobster brisket…and pass laws and regulations getting on the same page, we’ll be here ready to build the project and make it happen. That is, Spectra has not given up on Access Northeast–and neither should we. Here’s the expansion projects update section, which includes not only the update for Access Northeast, but details for other projects located in the Marcellus/Utica region…
PennEast Pipeline, to their credit, is done being silent when it comes to the lies and distortions of groups like the radical (and lying) New Jersey Sierra Club. Recently PennEast called out the Sierra Club (and THE Delaware Riverkeeper) for their lying ways, without using the word “liar” (see 
Maryland’s heavily Democrat legislature is doing its best to slap a permanent ban on fracking in the state (see 
We’ve heard of concerns that there may be a shortage of sand used for fracking in the near future–right here in the Marcellus/Utica. We then spotted a story about an impending sand shortage by the Reuters news agency (below). It takes something like an average of 11 million pounds to frack a well. Chesapeake Energy experimented with pushing the envelope with a well in Louisiana by using 50 million pounds (see 
Events related to drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling.
You beg and plead and beg and plead. You come with your hat in your hand. You try to explain that no, the pipeline isn’t going to avoid your property, Mr. or Ms. Landowner. But some landowners refuse to negotiate. So the last resort option must be exercised. That’s the situation with Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline in several counties in Pennsylvania–including Lancaster, Lebanon, Columbia, Northumberland and Schuylkill. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a final certificate for Atlantic Sunrise, allowing construction to begin, just two weeks ago today (see