Intervenor Contagion Catching on with Radical Green Groups in NE
Like a contagion moving through the small-but-dedicated anti-fossil fuel movement in the northeast, the strategy of filing as an “intervenor” in pipeline permitting is catching on. MDN first alerted you to this sleazy tactic being used by THE Delaware Riverkeeper back in October 2015 (see Delaware Riverkeeper Scams FERC in Review of PennEast Pipeline). In short, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has a process known as a motion to intervene. Individuals, towns and organizations with a vested, *legitimate* interest can file to “intervene” in a pipeline project application, which gives them special standing to receive updates from FERC and to ensure their views are fully considered by FERC. THE Delaware Riverkeeper and others began registering everyone–including their own children–as “intervenors” which essentially overloads FERC’s system and greatly slows down the permitting process (ses FERC Confirms “Intervenors” Slowing Down Pipeline Approvals). It is an abuse of the system–but then anti groups are no strangers to violating the rules, or laws. They revel in “catch me if you can” behavior. Intervenor abuse is catching in Massachusetts where radical greens are trying the same tactic to slow down approvals for the Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) project. Radical greens in Ohio are also using the tactic to try and slow down approvals for the NEXUS pipeline there. The intervenor contagion has now spread from PA to MA to OH, with no end in sight…
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Thank you for an awesome 2015 at the Marcellus Drilling News blog/news site. You, our dear readers, made it a terrific year. Truth to tell we lost a few subscribers overall in 2015 due to the severe downturn in the drilling marketplace. Some people who work in the industry lost their jobs and did not re-subscribe. Some landowners moved away or otherwise gave up hope that they will see drilling any time soon. But you know, we can’t complain. Many (many!) of you hung in there with MDN for another year. Editor Jim Willis pledges that 2016 will see some much-needed improvements with the design of the site, essentially unchanged since we began it in 2009, and with new product offerings. Stay tuned! In the meantime, we’d like to reflect back on 2015. Everyone else, it seems, has run a “top 10” article list for 2015, so why don’t we? Below are the top 10 most-read stories of 2015 on the MDN web site. But first, a few raw numbers. In 2015 the MDN site received 785,120 “user sessions” (or visits) made by 388,239 different, unique people. Those people viewed 1,496,910 pages on the site, almost all of those pages being articles. Not too shabby if you ask us–that a niche publication like MDN garners more than one-third of a million people viewing 1.5 million pages of content. We know of large circulation magazines that would kill for those numbers! Now, on to the top 10 articles those one-third of a million people viewed the most…