Ohio AG Sues Austin Master Services for Unsafe Storage of Wastewater
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost took legal action Monday, seeking to force Austin Master Services in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), OH, to correct “egregious violations of Ohio law” regarding storage of oil and gas waste that he says threatens the Ohio River (500 feet away) and Martins Ferry’s drinking water supply (1,000 feet away). Austin Master Services serves the Marcellus/Utica industry (and other industries) with radiological waste management solutions, including remediation, decontamination & decommissioning (D&D), and transportation. The company was bought by and is now a subsidiary of PA-based American Environmental Partners, Inc. (see American Energy Buys Radioactive Waste Co. Austin Master Services).
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Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (PIPE) grants cover part of the cost of building new natural gas pipelines to connect homes and businesses, typically in rural parts of the state, to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the dozens of PIPE grant projects awarded over the years (
In 2004, Pennsylvania implemented one of the most aggressive mandates to adopt wind and solar energy. At the time, less than 1% of net energy generation came from wind and solar in the Keystone State. In 2023, after the state had spent nearly $1.5 billion in subsidies, wind and solar generated less than 2%. And yet current Gov. Josh Shapiro (liberal Democrat) wants to double down by requiring 35% of electricity to come from politically favored sources, such as wind and solar, by 2035. The one energy source that has PROVEN to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? That would be natural gas, which is not on the politically favored sources list.
South Carolina House Bill H.5118, sponsored by S.C. House Speaker Murrell Smith, addresses the pressing need for more power generation in the Palmetto State in the wake of explosive population growth. H.5118 would establish specific timelines for the S.C. Public Service Commission (SCPSC) and other permitting agencies to rule on applications for all future projects, including gas-fired power plants. The legislation would also establish a streamlined process by which all future appeals go straight to the S.C. Supreme Court (which happens about 99% of the time). Yet radicalized leftist groups like Conservation Voters of South Carolina (CVSC) are having a heart attack, trying to defeat this commonsense bill.
As we told you last week, the problem-plagued Freeport LNG export plant continues to be mostly offline following an episode of cold temps in January (see 
NATIONAL: Summer pump prices set to hit $4 a gallon just as Americans hit the road; Blockchain demands attention in oil and gas; Robert F. Kennedy Jr. picks Nicole Shanahan as his running mate; U.S. policymakers must adjust to energy transition wake-up call; INTERNATIONAL: Oil dips as continued OPEC cutbacks are likely; Gas-rich Australia’s looming need for LNG imports draws fire.
The two Democrats and one anti-drilling RINO who run Bucks County government (a Philadelphia suburb) fell for the bait by Big Green and filed a lawsuit against Big Oil companies for supposedly, knowingly, causing the Earth to toast to a cinder (even though 
Last week, MDN brought you a story about the rampant cost inflation for plugging old conventional abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells in the Keystone State (see 
According to Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association’s (TIPRO) latest State of Energy report, the U.S. oil and gas industry directly employed 2.04 million workers in 2023. That’s a net increase of 56,373 direct jobs compared to 2022. According to the report, the oil and gas industry paid a national average wage of $79,427 in 2023. Workers in Crude Oil Extraction earned the highest annual average wage of all oil and gas industry sectors at $220,863. Want a great job? Work in the O&G industry!
According to Scott Tinker, CEO of Tinker Energy Associates and director emeritus of the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology, lifting billions of people out of energy poverty while reducing emissions is possible. But only if we ask the right questions. Tinker spoke at CERAWeek last week in Houston. He also had some blunt words about renewables, calling the very notion of renewable energy “mythical” and not anchored in reality. He also said: “Natural gas will be here for a very long time. And there’s quite a bit of it.”
The State of Texas just dropped a major bombshell last week. The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) pulled $8.5 billion of its investments away from BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment firm, over the state’s determination that BlackRock is engaged in a boycott of energy companies by pressuring companies to avoid the fossil fuel sector by using ESG (environment, social, governance) litmus tests (see 
For more than three years, MDN has called out the International Energy Agency (IEA) and its executive director, Dr. Fatih Birol, as nothing more than tools of Big Green. We’ve reported on many of the IEA’s fake predictions about peak demand for oil and natural gas (see 
Ever hear of August “Gus” Schumacher? No, neither had we. He’s a cross-country skier from Alaska. Apparently, he’s mildly famous for being the first American to win a gold medal in an individual race at the Junior World Ski Championships in 2020. He competed in the 30-kilometer skiathlon at the 2022 Winter Olympics. And, he won the Men’s 10-kilometer freestyle race at the 2024 Stifel Loppet Cup in Minneapolis on February 18, 2024. He’s also a brainwashed tool of the left who spouts inanities about global warming and carbon dioxide. Schumacher was completely humiliated, exposed as a fool, by U.S. Senator John Kennedy at a Senate Budget Committee hearing last week (watch the video below).
Summit Midstream Partners, LP, which owns midstream (pipeline) assets in a number of major plays across the country, including the Marcellus/Utica, announced on Friday the sale of the company’s Ohio Utica assets, including its Summit Midstream Utica, LLC subsidiary, which includes its approximately 36% interest in Ohio Gathering Company, approximately 38% interest in Ohio Condensate Company, and other wholly-owned Utica assets. The sale was made to a subsidiary of MPLX LP (i.e., MarkWest Energy) for $625 million in cash. Summit will no longer own Utica assets in Ohio, but the company WILL retain (for now) its Marcellus assets in West Virginia.