Nervous Green Groups Seek to Join NY Frack Ban “Taking” Lawsuit
In mid-April, MDN brought you the great news that a major lawsuit had been filed against New York State, alleging a “taking” of private property by the state through its ban on fracking (see New Lawsuit Brought Against NY Claims State Frack Ban a “Taking”). The state Department of Environmental Conservation and the State Attorney General Leticia James were named as defendants in the initial filing. A couple of weeks later, NY Governor Kathy Hochul was added to the list (see NY Gov. Hochul Added as Defendant in Frack Ban “Taking” Lawsuit). Big Green is obviously VERY nervous that this lawsuit against the state may succeed, so they (and their foreign financial backers) want to join the lawsuit on New York’s side as “intervenors,” giving their high-priced attorneys a seat at the table. Read More “Nervous Green Groups Seek to Join NY Frack Ban “Taking” Lawsuit”
It never ends well for landowners who believe they can block pipeline surveyors from accessing their land. In April 2025, MDN told you about a new greenfield expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Elba Express pipeline into South Carolina to serve growing demand for natural gas in the state (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Fire extinguished at Monroe Energy’s Trainer refinery in Pennsylvania; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Texas data center to use Cummins natural gas generators; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas futures slip as July contract expires; USA oil, gas workforce rises from April to May; New name, new mission at the Justice Department; U.S. banking on ‘co-innovation’ for its trillion-dollar energy build; INTERNATIONAL: Crude falls on rising Gulf supplies; Hormuz traffic ebbs as attacks stoke fresh concerns; The IGU calls on EU to “urgently rethink” methane regs; Oil prices and lessons for the press from a failure of expertise. 
The Marcellus/Utica region received 31 new drilling permits last week, June 15 – 21, up from the pathetic 2 permits issued two weeks ago. However, not all 31 permits reported last week were issued last week. Ohio, which is increasingly tardy in updating its public reports, included permits in last week’s report that should have been in the previous week’s. Last week, Pennsylvania issued 18 permits. Ohio issued 9 new permits, all of which should have been reported two weeks ago. West Virginia issued 4 new permits last week. The drillers who received new permits included: EOG Resources, EQT, Gulfport Energy, Infinity Natural Resources, JKLM Energy, LOLA Energy, Northeast Natural Energy, PennEnergy Resources, and Sabre Energy. 
In early May, Devon Energy completed its buyout of and merger with Coterra Energy, paying $21.4 billion in Devon stock (see 
The Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) is set to vote on Monday to open roughly 23,000 acres of publicly owned wildlife preserves in eastern Ohio to fracking. The panel will weigh accepting bids on about 15,000 acres split between Jockey Hollow and Egypt Valley, plus opening another 8,000 acres of Egypt Valley. Approval would bring Ohio’s leased public land to more than 30,000 acres across Salt Fork State Park and six wildlife areas, mostly in the Belmont-Harrison-Guernsey region. Ohio has already collected roughly $57 million in signing bonuses, plus 18–20% royalties. 
In October 2025, we reported that Ohio Republican Senators had introduced Senate Bill (SB) 219, the first significant update to Ohio’s oil and gas laws since the Kasich administration more than a decade ago (see 
In early 2024, we reported that Penn America Energy CEO Franc James, the potential builder of the proposed Penn America LNG export facility in the Philadelphia area, said that he “pumped the brakes” on the project but that it wasn’t dead yet (see 
This is a momentous occasion. Yesterday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a “Notice to Proceed with Construction” order authorizing Mountain Valley Pipeline (owned by EQT Corporation) to proceed with construction of MVP Southgate pipeline in North Carolina. This follows FERC granting permission to begin building Southgate in Virginia in April (see 
Last week, MDN told you about a group of landowners in Salem Township (Luzerne County), PA, near Wilkes-Barre, who had banded together to offer their land for sale to a data center project and potentially become very wealthy (see 
The thing about the political left is that they NEVER give up. EVER. And so, neither must we. The left wants to destroy new shale drilling in Pennsylvania. They couldn’t do it via regulation. They couldn’t convince a majority of residents that shale drilling is bad. So they search out other ways to make it happen. Among those ways are efforts to increase setbacks (distance from wells to homes and other structures) from the current 500 feet to over 3,200 feet, which would ban drilling in 95%+ of the state (see 
At the 2026 Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) conference in Houston, Texas, experts debated whether U.S. shale has “peaked.” AllianceBernstein’s Bob Brackett noted that the sector has added 10 million bbl/d of oil since 2013, with Delaware Basin wells producing 300,000 bbl in two years, but flagged stalled productivity since 2021 and stubbornly low recovery factors (meaning less than 10% of the oil in the shale is actually recovered). Chevron’s Birlie Bourgeois called for a “next chapter” via AI, better fractures, and EOR surfactants, which have boosted productivity up to 20%.