Dem Politicians Pressure NY Gov to Block Iroquois Pipe Expansion
The Food & Water Watch (FWW) organization (anti-fossil fuel fanatics) has taken point on the left’s effort to block Iroquois Gas Transmission’s plan to upgrade compressor stations in the Empire State. Iroquois’ Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project increases horsepower at three compression stations — two in New York and one in Connecticut — by an extra 125 MMcf/d, flowing more Marcellus/Utica gas into New York City and New England. FWW held a “rally” (we’d call it a freak show) at the State Capitol in May, where various politicos joined paid protesters to put on a dog-and-pony-show for the cameras, delivering 8,000 form letters to Gov. Hochul’s office (see Radicals Keep Pressure on NY Gov. Hochul to Block Iroquois Upgrade). Yesterday, FWW reassembled largely the same group for another “we hate fossil fuels” rally, this time in wealthy, snobbish Westchester County. Some 69 Democrat politicians, along with paid protesters, were in attendance.
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Being reasonable and seeking compromise and the middle ground exited American politics about a decade ago. Maybe 20 years ago. What we have today, at least on the left of the political spectrum, is “my way or the highway.” Tyranny. It is the very definition of unreasonableness. Here is a perfect example: Yesterday, the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee, chaired by Democrat Rep. Greg Vitali (a Marcellus shale hater), held a hearing on Hydrogen Hubs and Climate Change. The name of the hearing says it all. Vitali paraded mind-numbed robots (“we hate fossil fuels, we hate fossil fuels”) from radicalized organizations like Earthjustice to testify before the hearing. The stupidity on display was breathtaking.
Tallgrass Energy, majority owner of the Rockies East Express (REX) pipeline — a 1,712-mile pipeline that runs from Colorado and Wyoming to Ohio — has owned 75% of REX since buying out a 25% share from Sempra Energy in 2016 for $440 million (see 
President Joementia Biden’s regulators recently finalized a flood of major energy and environmental rules in hopes they’ll stick when Donald Trump returns to the White House next January. A sort of “burn the ships” strategy. Bidenistas embedded across the D.C. swamp hustled to complete sweeping new regulations in recent months — including everything from a high-stakes power plant rule to a policy governing the conservation of public lands. When Trump came to power in 2016, he used something called the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse such policies put in place by the Obamadroids. The Bidenistas think they have bullet-proofed their regulations against the use of the CRA.
NATIONAL: Berkshire now owns nearly 29 percent of Occidental; Oil rises above $80 for first time in a month; Front month Nymex natural gas fell 3.23% to settle at $2.7880.
On Friday, Equitrans Midstream, the builder and majority owner of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, announced the pipeline has, after a decade of planning and building, finally begun to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules. Who is buying those molecules? We know of at least one company. In a separate announcement, Roanoke Gas Company (a large local utility) said it had begun to purchase M-U molecules from MVP on Friday. Roanoke Gas said for the first time since 1965, the Roanoke Valley now has access to a new interstate natural gas pipeline via two interconnections Roanoke Gas has with MVP.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) plan to flow an extra 115 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to Westchester County, NY, and New York City to be used for Consolidated Edison customers is called the East 300 Upgrade Project. The project took a giant leap forward in April 2022 when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued permits that allow TGP to upgrade two existing compressor stations (in PA), and build a brand new compressor station in West Milford (Passaic County, NJ), just across the border and not far from Westchester County (see 
MDN told you the bottom had dropped out of the rig count two weeks ago (see 
Last Friday, MDN told you about a problem brewing that will block new hydrogen projects from getting built in the Marcellus/Utica (see 
One month ago, MDN told you that although the New York Senate had passed a bill already passed by the Assembly to ban the use of carbon dioxide in shale drilling (so-called “CO2 fracking”), Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, a reliable anti-fossil fueler, had still not signed the bill into law (see 
Natural gas development in the Marcellus/Utica continues to get cleaner year after year. Updated data shows our region’s natgas producers reduced methane intensity by nearly 17% in a single year. That’s according to a report co-authored by the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), an anti-fossil fuel organization. The CATF and Ceres (an anti-capitalist organization) recently released its fourth annual 2024 Benchmarking Methane and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions report.
Two weeks ago, 31 new permits were issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica region. Last week, June 3 – 9, the number dropped (dramatically) by 77% to just seven new permits. And that seems to be the pattern: Way up one week, way down the next. Last week, for the second week in a row, Ohio issued ZERO new shale permits. The top permit receiver for last week was HG Energy, which had five permits for a single pad in Doddridge County, WV. The other two permits were issued in PA: one to CNX in Greene County, and the other to Range Resources in Washington County.
In a clear case of sour grapes for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circus clowns) who tried to block the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) by rendering arbitrary decisions that caused years of delays for the pipeline, the court flipped the bird to MVP one last time in a decision issued Tuesday of this week (June 11). Three judges from the 4th Circus re-inflated a jury award against MVP for an eminent domain “taking” case in the Bent Mountain, Virginia, area back in May (see