Cove Point Protester Sentenced to Jail, Lied About Police Assault
When did it become “vindictive” to prosecute criminals? That’s what we’re supposed to believe about the prosecution of a radicalized, anti-fossil fuel environmentalist who was just, after nearly one and a half years, sentenced to serve 15 days in jail for lying, falsely claiming local police assaulted her. In February 2015 Heather Doyle, a radical “activist” climbed a crane at the Dominion Cove Point LNG export facility to hang a banner that said, “Dominion get out. Don’t frack Maryland. No gas exports. Save Cove Point.” It’s bad enough that she endangered herself along with another activist who aided her. She also endangered rescue workers and police who had to remove her from the crane. Then Doyle lied to the police and claimed Calvert County Sheriff’s Office deputies assaulted her as they were removing her from the crane SHE climbed up. That’s a very serious charge–especially in this day and age. The police investigated and discovered she was lying, so the District Attorney pressed charges. And it took this long for the case to play out. On May 27, Judge Marjorie Clagett of the Calvert County Circuit Court sentenced Doyle to three months in jail, with all but 15 days suspended, 240 hours of community service, two years of supervised probation, and $165 in court costs. It ain’t much, but it’s a little bit of justice against radicals who frequently break the law in a misguided attempt to protest fossil fuels…
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A decision by the Middle District Court of Pennsylvania is worth noting–for both drillers AND landowners. A landowner in Susquehanna County, PA sold some land already under lease to a new landowner/rights owner. Neither the new landowner nor the previous landowner informed the driller of the change in ownership. The time came to renew the lease and under the terms of the contract the driller sent payment–but didn’t know about the change in ownership–so the driller sent the payment to the previous owner. The new landowner used that faux pas as a legal excuse to sue the driller to break the contract. The new landowner claimed the paperwork filed (not the full lease but an abstract) didn’t contain mention of informing the driller. In other words, the landowner used the “we didn’t know” excuse. The judge disagreed and said, a) the lease itself clearly outlines the responsibilities of the old/new landowners to inform the driller, b) there is a reasonable expectation for the new landowner to perform due diligence in seeking out a copy of the original lease to know that. Therefore the new landowner is still under lease. Here’s an outline of the case, with names…
Last week the federal EPA released a draft of its final Environmental Justice Strategic Plan for 2016-2020 (full copy below). The feds are now seeking comments, until July 7, which they will toss in the garbage can. The EPA is and remains a rogue agency–out of control and drunk on its own power (with a need to be reigned in). What is so-called “environmental justice” anyway? It’s coded language for screwing “rich” companies and giving the money to poor folk. The aims of the EPA’s enviro justice plan are: (1) radically expand “rulemaking”–which means enacting laws without the legislative branch doing it, and then enforcing the cockamamie laws they make up using their own thugs; (2) come down on state and local governments like a ton of bricks, forcing them to dance to the EPA’s tune; and (3) continue to use unrealistic standards to punish companies that dare to make money and provide jobs. That about sums up the EPA’s approach, in our estimation. The EPA gets to make up its own laws and then enforce those laws–bypassing Congress altogether. It is a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution. Here’s a copy of the EPA’s “justice” plan, along with a more “objective” (than we offered) description of what the EPA is attempting with this latest power grab…
We have nothing against renewable energy like wind and solar, per se. We just want them to compete with other forms of energy, like natural gas–without taxpayer money propping up renewable projects. Well-intentioned companies like Dominion frequently engage in dalliances with wind and solar projects–more of a public relations thing than a real effort at developing such sources. How can we say such a thing? Why be so harsh? Look at the recent announcement from Dominion that the U.S. Department of Energy has just withdrawn a promised $40 million grant the company was going to use to build two advanced-technology, 6-megawatt wind turbines in federal waters about 24 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, VA. At peak production, the two turbines would generate enough electricity to power up to 3,000 homes. It will cost $300 – $380 million to build them. Compare that to a new natural gas-fired electric plant built by Dominion in Virginia that recently went online–the Brunswick Power Station. That plant cost $1.1 billion to build, produces 1,358 megawatts of electricity (even when the wind doesn’t blow) and powers 325,000 homes. So for about trip the cost the natgas plant powers 322,000 more homes than the wind project. That’s what we call a no-brainer–and a perfect illustration of why the government should not be in the business of funding dud wind projects…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Imagine a shale gas “dream well” that yields 100 Bcf and costs under $30M; rig count stabilizes; Supreme Court rules landowners can sue govt over wetlands; oil hits $50/bbl for first time in 2016; will shale oil boom again?; condensates still getting whipsawed; the battle inside OPEC; and more!
In last Thursday’s episode of “As the (Midstream) World Turns” (ATMWT) MDN told you that Williams still wants to marry Energy Transfer Equity (ETE), even though both companies are suing each other over the proposed merger (see 
Last week presidential candidate Donald Trump gave a speech on energy and energy policies at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismark, North Dakota. By all accounts, Trump hit the ball out of the park. Before a crowd of some 7,000 people, Trump delighted the audience with a pretty simple message: cut back on regulations that choke America’s exploration and production of energy–and frack a lot more. Which is contrary to “crooked Hillary’s” vision of enacting new regulations to the point that fracking will be banned (see 
Last December Pennsylvania’s felony-indicted Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, brought a lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy, Anadarko and Williams accusing them of, among other things, royalty fraud (see 
Every now and again it’s fun to delve into some of the technical aspects of drilling a Marcellus (and Utica) Shale well. We pick up on some of those particulars from a survey conducted by Hart Energy. Hart surveyed Marcellus and Utica drillers and found that, unsurprisingly, what has worked continues to work: When a Marcellus driller drills and fracks a well, the driller uses slickwater and up to 11 million pounds of white sand. What IS surprising to learn is that Utica drillers who had favored ceramic beads instead of sand are moving away from using ceramic beads and toward the Marcellus tried-and-true slickwater with sand approach. Here’s a few more interesting tidbits, including the fact that Halliburton is king of refracks in the Marcellus…
There are precisely two counties in all of the State of Maryland that contain Marcellus Shale deposits under them–Garrett and Allegany counties, in the far western tip of the state. Maryland is currently under an idiotic temporary ban (see 
The reason the price of natural gas is so low, as we’ve long pointed out, is simple economics. Supply and demand. We have a steady-to-slightly-increasing demand, but we have a whole boatload of new supply–thanks to the miracle of hydraulic fracturing. How does this supply/demand imbalance get corrected? You either need more demand, or less supply. We can assure you the less-supply thing ain’t happenin’. That leaves more demand. Yes, there is some interest from other countries who want our cheap natural gas. But let’s face it–we need to create more demand right here at home. Will that happen any time soon? Perhaps. We’d long hoped that natural gas vehicles would come along to dramatically increase demand of our domestic gas. So far, that hasn’t happened. NGVs haven’t taken off. But there is one source that can’t seem to get enough natgas: electric power generation. Coal plants are shutting down at an alarming rate, thanks to Obama’s war on coal. Nuclear plants are also shutting down because they can’t compete with cheap natgas. The fantastic trend recently has been the planning and building of new natgas-fired electric plants. Will demand for natgas-fired electricity continue to grow? For a partial answer to that, we turn to the number crunchers at our favorite government agency, the U.S Energy Information Administration…