Sixth Circuit Court Stops EPA from Implementing WOTUS Anywhere
Thank God for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit! Last Friday the Sixth Circuit issued a stay on the odious and overreaching Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)/Army Corps of Engineers’ (ECA) so-called update that redefines Waters of the United States (WOTUS) to include just about everything, including mud puddles (see EPA Power Grab: Redefines Waters of the U.S. to Include Everything). The new rule will have a profoundly negative impact on the oil and gas industry. Some 13 states sued the EPA/ACE to stop this draconian rule from going into effect. In August a federal judge temporarily blocked the new WOTUS rule to give the lawsuit brought by the 13 states a chance (see EPA’s Draconian WOTUS Rule Blocked by Federal Judge). However, the EPA, acting like petulant children, said they would move forward with implementing the rule in the other 37 states anyway. The Sixth Circuit on Friday put an end to that plan. Now WOTUS is not enforceable by the EPA, at least until the lawsuit plays out…
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Early last week MDN told you about NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s disastrous new pick to run the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the agency that oversees oil and gas drilling in the Empire State (see 
Short selling of Gastar Exploration stock has increased–certainly not a positive sign for the company. From time to time we bring you a story, like this one, that on the surface appears to be of interest only for investors rather than landowners or companies that sell goods and services to the shale industry (supply chain). MDN does have a number of investors who subscribe, but if you think stories like this one are only for investors, you are mistaken. Landowners, supply chain companies, even those in elected government are all affected and should pay attention. Short selling is when investors buy stock on a gamble that the stock will decrease–not increase–in price. When a company’s stock decreases in price, the company has a lower market capitalization and it makes it (a) harder to borrow money, and (b) if they can borrow the money, they have to do it at a higher interest rate, making business activities less profitable. If we cut out all of the connections from point A to point B and just boil it all down: when a driller’s stock price decreases significantly, it means less drilling and financial instability for the company, which does not benefit landowners and the supply chain companies that want to sell goods and services to that driller. In other words, it means less royalties, less business opportunities, less jobs and less economic impact. That’s why we report stories like the following…
The oil and gas industry is far better at self-regulation and self-policing than any government agency can provide. Governmental regulators take forever to inflict new regulations–and they take even longer to lift those regulations when they’re no longer necessary or useful (witness the ban on crude oil exports in place since the early 1970s that the House of Representatives voted to lift last Friday, but Obama has promised to veto). A great example of self-regulating and self-policing is the American Petroleum Institute (API). Last week the API issued updated hydraulic fracturing standards with an aim to continuously improve well integrity, groundwater protection, and environmental safety. While API’s recommended practices are not binding on drillers, API standards are highly respected and used by many drillers–those who care about doing it right…
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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: fate of Philly energy hub in hands of next mayor; PA towns get big money from impact fee; RR inspectors missed defect that led to fiery derailment in WV; lifting the ban on crude exports not a slam dunk; Morgan Stanley says low natgas prices through 2020; Puerto Rico changing to natgas; LNG projects ‘dying off’; and more!
Yesterday Rice Energy announced that the company’s subsidiary, Rice Midstream, has signed a joint venture agreement with competitor Gulfport Energy to develop a pipeline gathering and water delivery system for Gulfport’s Utica Shale drilling program in Ohio’s eastern Belmont County and Monroe County. Rice will be 75% owner and in charge of the jv. Rice and Gulfport plan to invest a combined $640 million into the jv over the next six years. Construction begins immediately and the first gas (and water) will begin to flow through the new system by middle of next year. Here’s the details…
Advanced Power Services announced yesterday they will build a second mega-electric generating plant that taps into and uses Ohio’s Utica Shale. This new plant will generate a whopping 1,100 megawatts of electricity and be located in Columbiana County, OH. Advanced just broke ground in July on a 700-megawatt plant in Carroll County (see 
On Wednesday Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf got his wish to have an up or down vote on his latest high tax budget proposal and it went to down in flames (see 
It’s a miracle! Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf actually did something right–he signed Senate Bill (SB) 875 into law yesterday. You may recall on Tuesday we told you that the PA Senate and House had passed SB875 and sent it on to Wolf for his signature (see 
In January 2014, anti-drilling “researchers” jumped the gun at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Philadelphia by announcing “preliminary” results of research in which they claim they can show a connection between shale drilling and low birth weights in newborn babies in Pennsylvania (see 
We’ve written plenty over the years about the silly nutters who make up the Sierra Club. It’s a joke of an organization, and that was evident for the world to see earlier this week when U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz questioned the president of the Sierra Club, Aaron Mair, at a Congressional hearing. Using simple, direct and non-bullying questions, Cruz exposed Mair as an empty-headed fraud only capable of regurgitating a few canned responses to Cruz’s questions about man-made global warming. The standard line was to repeat over and over that “97 percent of scientists agree” on man-made global warming. That particular statistic comes from a small, flawed study of hand-picked scientists back in 2013. Mair and others hope by repeating the lie over and over enough times, everyone will believe it. Cruz didn’t fall for it. There is a video (below) that you MUST watch. It exposes Mair as a fool–not able to defend his own statements about global warming. Nearly every question Cruz asked Mair would have to lean back to have his advisers feed him the answers. Mair is an empty suit–nobody home upstairs. Empty-headed. It’s a beautiful example of the entire organization, showing it as nothing more than a political advocacy group, ignorant of real science. Yes, we do revisit the important topic of global warming from time to time because the issue is at the heart of the movement to ban fracking and end the use of all fossil fuels–a dangerously naive and stupid movement supported by organizations like the Sierra Club…
In the end, it was PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s own Democrat Party House members that sunk his latest high tax budget proposal. Nine Dems voted against the Wolf budget, showing bipartisan support for defeating Wolf’s high taxes, including lack of support for a high severance tax. Every single Republican, even the RINOs, voted against Wolf’s unpopular budget proposal. Trying to spin his humiliating defeat as some sort of plus, Wolf said he was “encouraged” that “so many Democrats” actually voted yes for his budget. Talk about chutzpah. Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, has some big cojones–he equated Wolf with a thug trying to mug somebody, taking all of their money at gunpoint. Wow! It’s about time there was some frank talk about the bully Wolf has become in ten short months–and some push-back against it. Time for Republicans to pass a budget and get a few of those Dems to go along and override a Wolf veto. Time to govern without Wolf if he refuses to do his job…
Don’t look now but Utica/Marcellus condensate being produced at a MarkWest Energy processing plant in Cadiz, OH is being exported out of the country via a ship docked on the Hudson River at Perth Amboy, New Jersey–just across the river from Manhattan! The condensate is transported to NJ via railroad in specially designed rail cars. A second ship is being loaded up and will leave with Utica/Marcellus condensate from MarkWest, according to the Reuters story below. The first ship loaded with condensate left Perth Amboy one month ago heading to the Netherlands. No word yet on where the second load is heading, but sources say exporting condensate from Perth Amboy is now set up to become a routine thing, which is fantastic news for drillers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that produce condensate…