Jury Still Out on Debt Bill’s Ability to Deliver Permitting Reform
Will the debt ceiling bill, the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,” actually get passed? And, will it retain the sections that deal with completing the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and so-called permitting reform? That’s the gazillion-dollar question. We should know within the next day or so whether the bill, largely as written, will survive. Let’s assume, for the moment, that it does survive and gets adopted. We brought you the preliminary language of the 99-page bill yesterday (see Biden-McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal Includes Finishing MVP PDQ). Section 107 in the bill, called “Timely and Unified Federal Reviews,” provides for permitting reform that speeds up fossil energy and renewable energy projects. Here’s another gazillion-dollar question: Will Section 107 do what it advertises?
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We have nothing against using hydrogen as an energy source, other than it will never be able to power your home (see 
It’s been a wild ride for shale energy companies from the beginning of the shale revolution around 20 years ago. Here in the Marcellus/Utica, the very first Marcellus well was sunk by Range Resources in 2004. Until a few years ago, most shale drillers were not profitable, eating through investors’ money like candy. Just before the beginning of the pandemic, shale drillers got the “free cash flow” religion and began to pull back on new drilling in favor of profitability for shareholders. The pandemic, followed by Russia’s war against Ukraine, added new market gyrations. Bottom line: Last year, shale oil and gas drillers saw historic revenues and profitability. This year, the bottom is dropping out once again…
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Six natural gas units installed at Martin Drake Plant; NATIONAL: Oil plummets as physical market shows copious supplies; The $200 billion electric school bus bust; 150 ways Biden & Dems have made it harder to produce oil & gas; INTERNATIONAL: Plunging LNG prices have traders bracing for US export cancellations; Poorer nations snap up cheap LNG in economic boost.
Big news over the weekend. President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to a compromise deal to raise the debt ceiling–into the stratosphere. Part of the deal is a provision in the 99-page “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” called Section 324, which expedites the completion of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. MVP will flow 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus/Utica gas from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA. Needless to say, anti-fossil fuel nutters began howling at the moon and clawing at their faces upon hearing the MVP news.
Today’s lead story shares the good news that Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is finally getting a literal “act of Congress” to force its completion (see Biden-McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal Includes Finishing MVP PDQ). One of the provisions in the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” (debt ceiling bill) removes jurisdiction to hear court cases brought against MVP away from the corrupt U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and gives it to the D.C. Circuit instead. Which may not be the panacea we were hoping for. On Friday, the D.C. Circuit ruled in a case concerning MVP that has the potential to delay the project further. So much for the D.C. Circuit being MVP’s savior…
Last Friday, Form Energy, a Boston-based firm building a utility-scale battery factory just across the Pennsylvania border in Weirton, West Virginia, held a groundbreaking ceremony on the site of a former steel plant. On hand for the ceremony were Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE), and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, from WV. We don’t care a fig about the battery factory. It was comments about a potential Appalachian hydrogen hub, made during interviews at the event, that caught our attention. Granholm all but guaranteed a hydrogen hub is coming to our region. Hello, $1 billion! Joe Manchin went even further and said, “I think West Virginia is going to be awarded a hydrogen hub.” What does Joe know that we don’t?
Olympus Energy wants to drill six wells on a single pad in rural Elizabeth Township, a borough in Allegheny County on the east bank of the Monongahela River. The pad would sit about 2,400 feet (nearly half a mile) away from Elizabeth Forward High School. Some of the parents of students, and some of the administration, pushed back against Olympus’ drilling plan, using the kiddies as an excuse (see 
In September 2019, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave its blessing to Eagle LNG to build a small LNG export facility project at a site on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida (see 
An indisputable fact is that Joe Biden’s presidency has done more to damage the fossil fuel industry than any other president, including Lord Obama (and that’s saying something). Biden has been the best friend of the environmental left, like the League of Conservation Voters, Oil Change, Climate Defiance, Sierra Club, and more. Yet when Biden compromises even a little (to get more), like allowing Mountain Valley Pipeline to get completed (currently 94% done), the enviro left goes bananas. Because of a few recent decisions by Biden to support fossil energy projects, Big Green groups are threatening “direct actions” like shutting down parts of the D.C. swamp.
After years of litigation, we finally have closure on what is and what is not considered “waters of the United States”–or WOTUS. Yesterday, SCOTUS ruled unanimously on WOTUS. The U.S. Supreme Court came down on the side of rationality and common sense. What a surprise, and a delight! However, we’re still not done with WOTUS. The Bidenistas (like the Obamadroids before them) have tried to rewrite and redefine WOTUS, and two court cases are still pending to deal with that. However, yesterday’s decision in a case called Sackett v. EPA goes a long way to overturning the Bidenistas’ new WOTUS rules.
From the beginning of the shale revolution in Pennsylvania, State Rep. Greg Vitali (from the Philadelphia area), the current House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee Chairman, has been a shill, a mouthpiece for the rabid anti-fossil fuel lobby. Vitali no longer bothers to hide his joined-at-the-hip connection to Big Green. On full display for everyone to see is a column running in the Philadelphia Inquirer, supposedly co-authored by Vitali and Charles McPhedran, senior attorney for the left-wing Earthjustice organization. The column attacks crypto mining (Bitcoin mining) in the state, claiming it’s not “regulated” enough–by which they mean it should be blocked. Stopped. Hamstrung. Crypto mining is another term for computer server farms that use enormous amounts of electricity. Sometimes the server farms are located at remote (stranded) gas well sites where they (gasp!) burn natural gas to generate electricity. Vitali and McPhedran want to “regulate” (i.e., stop) such server farms.