FERC Chairman Christie All In on Issuing Speedier Pipe Permits
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) held its monthly meeting yesterday. Following the meeting, the newly minted Chairman, Mark Christie, held a press conference and answered many questions from reporters. Among them was about President Trump’s energy dominance agenda and building out infrastructure faster. As for speeding up the permitting process, Christie said, “That’s something we’d say publicly from the rooftops. We do want to do permitting efficiently and quickly.” He added with respect to faster permitting, “We’ve been focusing on that from the first day I was chair.” Read More “FERC Chairman Christie All In on Issuing Speedier Pipe Permits”
U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters plan to continue to monitor and curb their methane emissions despite President Trump’s plans to roll back EPA climate regulations (see 
Data centers and AI are in the news almost daily. The great issue of our time (which has developed over the past year or so) is that AI and data centers are huge customers for electricity. Every region of the country (particularly the Eastern Seaboard) struggles with how to meet the demand for more electricity. The existing grid can’t handle the coming increase in demand. Data centers would love to just “plug in” to the local grid, but given the speed with which they want to build these new facilities, that’s unrealistic. Building a new nuclear plant to power such facilities takes over a decade and billions of dollars. Building a new gas-fired power plant takes at least 2-3 years from start to finish (once permitting is issued). Is it possible to develop a new power source for data centers in two years? Indeed, there is… 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: New York state’s natural gas and electricity dilemma; Utica Shale Academy embarks on $1.5M welding lab project to boost local workforce skills; Bucks County’s energy lawsuit hurts Pennsylvania; NATIONAL: The Biden LNG ‘pause’ deception; Oil executives talk permitting but not prices in Trump meeting; U.S. ethane production, consumption, and exports set new records in 2024; Shale producers face uncertain future despite the Trump agenda; INTERNATIONAL: Hydrogen is not the future of energy; Net zero – all pain for no climate gain; Oil prices likely to be lower in 2025. 
Big Green is alarmed that New York Governor Kathy Hochul trooped to The White House last Friday to have a private, off-the-record conversation with President Trump about a laundry list of things, but two primary items: the Constitution Pipeline and a tax on driving in parts of Manhattan during certain hours (called “congestion pricing”). Nobody is saying anything about the meeting, but the implication is that perhaps Hochul and Trump were engaged in “horse swapping”—Trump bends on congestion pricing if Hochul bends on allowing (even endorsing) the Constitution Pipeline. The prospect of Hochul caving on the Constitution has set the environmental left’s hair on fire. 
Earlier this week, MDN told you that the Ohio Chamber of Commerce was putting its considerable influence behind a pair of bills making their way through the state legislature: Senate Bill (SB) 2 and House Bill (HB) 15 (see 
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will hold an 
You have to hand it to the environment-left; they sure are creative. How do they think these things up? Penn State researchers, committed to the religion of eliminating fossil fuels and the 100% adoption of unreliable renewables, are looking for a way to use old/depleted oil and gas wells—of which there are hundreds of thousands in PA (an estimated 3.9 million nationwide). The latest Penn State research proposes blowing compressed air down old wells and storing it underground where the earth’s heat will warm it, further compressing it (giving it an extra 9.5% of “efficiency”). And when electricity is needed, let the air escape, running big power turbines. Just one teeny, tiny problem: It costs so much that nobody will do it. 
Yesterday, Venture Global received approval from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to non-FTA countries for its third project, CP2 LNG, in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. Venture Global is working through a final investment decision (FID) to proceed with the project. The DOE approval is a key milestone for the project, a project that, in all likelihood, will use at least some Marcellus/Utica molecules. However, there are miles to go before it gets built, comes online, and then begins to honor its customer contracts. YEARS. 
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued its approval for Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass (CP) 2 LNG export project (see our story today, DOE Grants CP2 LNG (La.) Approval to Export to Non-FTA Countries). The DOE is ramping up and will likely approve many more projects. However, there is a problem: a hidden “landmine” left behind by the Biden DOE on its way out the door, meant to be used by Big Green in opposing Trump’s DOE actions. The landmine is a sham “study” on LNG and climate change issued by the Bidenistas (see 
This is a sweet victory for our side. Last summer, MDN told you about a lawsuit being heard to hold Big Green groups (namely Greenpeace) responsible for their actions. Energy Transfer (ET), the owner and operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP), sued Greenpeace and other alleged instigators for $300 million for the damages sustained by the company due to violent protests incited by the groups in North Dakota in 2016 (see 
Pipeline giant Williams, owner and operator of the mighty Transco pipeline system, deployed its top executives to speak at last week’s CERAWeek by S&P conference in Houston. On hand at the event were CEO Alan Armstrong, VP of New Energy Ventures, Jaclyn Presnal, and VP of Environmental, Regulatory and Permitting, Mark Gebbia. The three made a strong case that permitting reform is urgently needed if the country wants to deploy more natural gas for power generation and data centers.