Obama and Man-Child Leo DiCaprio Talk Global Warming at WH Event
Right at the top of our list of things that tick us off are uber-arrogant Hollywood actors who pretend to have gray matter in their heads, especially on the issue of man-made global warming. At the top of that list, for us, is the man-child pretender Leo DiCaprio. He parades around pretending that he’s some sort of expert on global warming. He nakedly states that if you have a different opinion from him on the topic of global warming, your right to free speech should be yanked away. He is, as most leftists are, a totalitarian at heart. Someone with more in common philosophically with Adolf Hitler than with Mahatma Gandhi. Man-child DiCaprio was parading his stuff on Monday at the White House, hosting a talk with Our Supreme Leader, B.H. Obama. Although Obama is a full-throated global warming fanatic who wants to end the use of fossil fuels, he is, nevertheless, a pragmatist. To his credit, Obama gave lukewarm support to natural gas as a “bridge fuel” that will (for now) lower carbon emissions, while waiting for his so-called precious renewables to become commercially viable and take over the energy world. Here’s how it went down on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday…
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Stephen Heins, an energy and regulatory consultant for a Wall Street firm, and former vice president of communication for Orion Energy Systems, is an occasional guest blogger here on MDN. Steve calls himself a “luke warmer” when it comes to the fairy tale that mankind is causing Mom Earth to toast. That is, he’s not convinced that man-kind is causing a catastrophic warming up, but he’s also not ruling it out. That’s OK, we forgive him. A lot of intelligent people believe in such things. At least he’s a skeptic! Steve recently penned an article that finds “several flaws” with President Obama’s so-called Clean Power Plan (which has been challenged in court by 29 states). The CPP outright kills coal, and it mortally wounds natural gas, as we’ve previously written (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Utica Shale drilling rigs now at 22, wells drilled 1,807; union members pack the hall to support OH pipeline; sales tax revenue up 65% in Utica counties; manufacturing jobs are the “crown jewel” of the shale revolution; oil and gas prices will rally, but it won’t last long; natgas rig count matters more than oil rig count; and more!
As a general rule and principle, local control over decisions that affect an entire community is a good thing. Our great country as founded gives precedence to individual freedom. However, what do you do when two neighbors disagree on an important, community-changing issue? Our founding fathers wrestled with this concept and crafted an ingenious solution. If everyone in a community voted on every issue, the founding fathers recognized such a system descends into mob rule. However, in order to preserve democracy and cherished individual freedom, people should have the right to vote. Instead of voting on every issue, the founders created a system where citizens vote for small groups of representatives who act as a buffer between the “mob” and common sense/fairness for everyone–people who dedicate their time to understanding issues, how their constituents feel about those issues, and then voting in accordance with their own conscience and findings. Such a representative democracy is called a republic, which is the political system we have in the United States (NOT a straight up democracy). Even among the layers of elected representatives (local, state, federal) there is a pecking order. The founders recognized there are certain rights and issues best decided and enforced on either the federal or state level, rather than the local level. Each local community (lets call it a township) does NOT have the right to craft its own constitution and confer rights on individuals, corporations, eco-systems or any other entity. Conferring of such rights is the purview of either the federal or state government–NOT a local government. For example, in every state in the union oil and gas development is regulated by the state–not by local entities. In some states, Pennsylvania among them, zoning can affect and influence oil and gas development–where it happens, when it happens–but not control how it happens. So what if a community decides to ban oil and gas development (or pipelines, or injection wells)–in other words, “whether” such an activity happens? Such a ban is illegal. Introducing zoning regulations that result in a de facto ban is also illegal–but it’s happening in pockets across the Keystone State. Perhaps it’s time to criminally charge local representatives who pass these illegal laws (laws that trample individual property rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution) under a PA law called “official oppression.” That’s what the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) is considering right now…
We’re not trying to beat a dead horse here with yet more coverage of last week’s PA Supreme Court ruling in yet another Act 13 case (see 
enerGREEN360, a young Ohio company that cleans up material heading to landfills so it can get re-used instead, has a plan to clean drill cuttings from Utica drilling to reuse those cuttings as clean fill on brownfield sites. The company has its sights set on an industrial park south of Cambridge, OH as its first location to dump the treated drill cuttings. Everyone wins in this instance–less material filling up local landfills, fill needed at the industrial park, the cuttings get treated before being used (minimizing any potential exposure risks). The only ones who lose are radical environmentalists, who will try their best to demagogue this plan, painting it as unsafe and harmful to locals who live and work in the area. The only problem for enerGREEN360 is that the Guernsey County Board of Supervisors is unanimously opposed to the plan (see 
Oilfield services company Mammoth Energy Services, headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, operates in both the Utica Shale and Permian Basin. Mammoth offers services like “completion and production services, natural sand proppant services, contract land and directional drilling services and remote accommodation services.” Mammoth is a baby company, formed in 2014, but already booking $243 million in revenue for the 12 months ended June 30th. Mammoth announced yesterday an initial public offering (IPO) of stock, which will trade under the ticker TUSK (keeping with the theme of a woolly mammoth–clever). The company plans to raise between $128-$169 million (call it $150M) by offering 7.75 million shares. What is noteworthy is that this is one of the very few new IPOs to be offered this year in the o&g sector…
MDN spotted an announcement that says PennAg and Sunoco Logistics (building the Mariner East 2 pipeline project) have collaborated to produce a “biosecurity education module.” What the heck is that?! It’s fancy language for “here’s how you keep farm animals safe when building a pipeline.” Building a pipeline is no easy thing. It starts with surveyors entering a property to map out a route–traipsing around the land, sticking markers in the ground. Eventually bulldozers, backhoes and truckloads of pipe show up. Then welders show up to stitch it together. Then it gets covered up, and later landscapers come along to replant, reseed, and re-whatever to restore the land to its former glory. With all of those people and equipment entering and exiting a property–particularly a farm–there’s an increased chance they will track something, or perhaps do something, that ends up being harmful to the livestock living on that land. So-called “biosecurity” is the name given to keeping the living things safe and free from harm from the people building (in this case) a pipeline. Sunoco has teamed up with PennAg Industries, a PA non-profit that promotes agriculture in the Keystone State, to make sure nothing bad happens when their workers show up at the farm. They’re creating an online course and making it available to anyone and everyone…
Last Friday the U.S. Energy Information Administration, our favorite government agency, released its Natural Gas Annual 2015 report. Weighing in at 212 pages (yikes!), this report is full of data. It is a datamonger’s dream come true. Right off the bat the report shows record U.S. natural gas production levels for the fifth consecutive year, and record consumption levels for the sixth consecutive year. Natgas is growing in the U.S. and it’s growing big-time. Another interesting factoid from the report: For the first time since 2007 natural gas imports *increased* year over year. That’s interesting! The report has a number of fascinating charts and graphs. We list a few of them below, along with a full copy of the report…
Three months ago MDN told you that Rex Energy’s bankers had reaffirmed the company’s “borrowing base” as being worth $190 million (see 
Last Friday the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association (PIOGA) filed a letter with the PA Joint House Senate Committee on Documents asking them to NOT publish the Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) final Chapter 78a Marcellus Drilling regulations, citing last week’s PA Supreme Court ruling on Act 13 as the basis. As MDN previously reported, the DEP plans to publish the final regulations in this week’s Oct. 8 Pennsylvania Bulletin (see 
Last week MDN brought you the news that DTE Energy, a BIG utility and midstream company based in Detroit, MI, is buying 100% of M3 Midstream’s Appalachia Gathering System (AGS), located in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and 40% of M3’s Stonewall Gas Gathering (SGG), located in West Virginia (see 
Last week Cabot Oil & Gas CEO Dan Dinges issued a company-wide memo to observe a very important milestone in the life of the company–the 10th anniversary of the start of drilling at the company’s very first Marcellus Shale well in Susquehanna County, PA. With a quick stroll down memory lane to recount other major milestones reached over the past 18 months, Dinges then makes this powerhouse prediction: In the “next couple of years” when new pipelines (like the Constitution) finally go online, Cabot plans to hit 4 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of Marcellus Shale production–per day! Going from memory, that would vault Cabot to the position of #1 Marcellus gas producer, ahead of the current #1, Chesapeake Energy. Put into context, the U.S. produces around 71-72 Bcf/d right now. If Cabot begins producing 4 Bcf/d, that represents 5.5% of the entire production of natural gas in our country–from a single driller in a single county in northeastern PA. Behold the miracle of the Marcellus! MDN adds our own hearty congratulations to our friends at Cabot (Buddy, George, Bill and Brittany)…