Rich Negrin Assumes Role of PA DEP Secretary with No Senate Hearing
We spotted an article chronicling a visit to Pennsylvania by the Dept. of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland yesterday. She was there to tout money flowing to the Keystone State from the so-called Infrastructure bill in order to plug old abandoned oil and gas wells. What was interesting about her visit was not that she was there to promote the Bidenista agenda and proclaim how great the doddering old fool (her boss) is. The interesting thing is who was by her side: Rich Negrin. You may recall newly minted liberal Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro nominated Negrin to be the next Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) just about 30 days ago (see Josh Shapiro Nominates Former NFL Player to Head PA DEP). So far, the State Senate has not held any hearings nor taken any votes on his nomination. Yet he is now the Acting Secretary of DEP, fully in charge.
2/11/23 UPDATE: We have the inside scoop from a former Secretary of DEP as to how this works–the process for new heads of departments taking on the Acting role, the customs and traditions for how it is handled in PA. Please see the bottom of this article.
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Last October, the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee held a hearing in Philadelphia about potentially locating an LNG export facility there. The country’s largest natural gas producer, EQT, showed up to discuss the key role gas has played in reducing emissions here at home and the role it could play in helping other countries reduce their emissions. Labor unions were there to talk about the jobs that would be created by such a facility. Penn LNG, the company that wants to build such a facility (and has lined up $6.4 billion so far to make it happen), was there too. But you didn’t know about it–because the event was ghosted by “mainstream” media.
Attorneys for both the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and those representing gas-fired power plants were in PA Commonwealth Court on Wednesday. DEP’s attorneys argued the court should toss a lawsuit brought by the power-generating industry against an obscene carbon tax called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) that DEP is trying to force on the state. Power generators argue in their lawsuit that RGGI will actually lead to MORE carbon pollution rather than less.
New shale permits issued for Jan. 30 through Feb. 5 in the Marcellus/Utica were about half the number of the week before, but the week before was a recent record high. There were 26 new permits issued in total last week, including five new permits for Pennsylvania, six new permits for Ohio, and 15 permits issued in West Virginia. Which is a turnaround from previous months. Lately, WV has puttered along with just a few (if any) each week. Last week WV issued eight new permits to Antero Resources and seven new permits to Tug Hill Operating.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Rhode Island climate goals may require statewide ban on new gas hookups; NATIONAL: As natural gas prices tumble, new worries for U.S. shale patch; For carbon-capture projects, storage risks require decades of monitoring; INTERNATIONAL: Cuadrilla owner takes $157m hit from fracking moratorium; Why taxing cow burps isn’t the best climate solution; China powers up use of liquefied natural gas.
Last September, the New York Public Service Commission (PSC), which oversees and regulates public utilities, approved the takeover of the Fortistar gas-fired power plant in North Tonawanda, NY, a town close to Niagara Falls, by Canadian crypto mining company Digihost. In December, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) offered its blessing too. All of which prompted the radicals of Earthjustice, representing two other disgusting radical groups–the Sierra Club and Clean Air Coalition of Western New York–to sue (see 
A pair of announcements yesterday gave us a little peek into the numbers Range Resources will release later this month as part of its quarterly update. In one update, Range (the very first driller to sink a Marcellus well back in 2004) reported averaging 2.2 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d) for production in the Marcellus/Utica region during the fourth quarter of 2022. A separate announcement said Range’s proved reserves for all of 2022 hit 18.1 trillion cubic feet equivalent (Tcfe), up 2% over the prior year.
Have you ever heard of reviving an expired lease through retroactive pooling and unitization? We sure hadn’t. But apparently, it’s a thing in the Marcellus region. According to the legal beagles at Pittsburgh energy law firm Houston Harbaugh, in some cases, landowners with leases that were expired are being notified those leases are now part of an amended (back-dated) declaration of pooling, which shows a date prior to the lease expiring.
Please don’t tell us politicians like Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and U.S. Senator Elizbeth “Pocahontas” Warren give a fig about global warming and carbon emissions. Their actions, along with the actions of other Democrat politicians, have blocked new natural gas pipelines into New England that would supply low-emission fuel to generate electricity for the region. When it gets brutally cold, as it did Feb 3-5, New England turns to burning oil and (yes) coal in order to keep the lights on for residents. It happened in December, and it happened again in February. So much for caring about Mom Earth. The actions of New England politicians speak so much louder than their many lying words…
Did you happen to catch President Biden’s State of the Union show? We didn’t. We couldn’t hack watching a doddering old fool spout nonsense for more than an hour. But we did catch the highlights from the speech. One highlight, in particular, was really funny. Biden was bashing Big Oil for “record profits” (he’s such a fool), and then, much to the horror of his handlers, Biden went off script and said that “We’re going to need oil for at least another decade.” The entire chamber erupted in laughter at such an asinine statement, which caught the old fool off guard, so he quickly added, “…and beyond that.”
The heads of three major oil and gas groups in the Appalachian region–the Marcellus Shale Coalition (representing Pennsylvania), the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia, and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association–combined to pen an open letter to President Biden encouraging him to let the Marcellus/Utica “lead the way” in achieving our country’s shared goals for domestic, affordable, and clean energy. It’s a great letter making strong and cogent arguments for why more M-U natgas can reduce emissions and benefit not only the economy but the environment. There’s just one small problem…
We spotted a fascinating story out of Los Angeles about the city’s foolish and reckless action in abandoning its largest natural gas-fired power generation plant in favor of using hydrogen instead. Hydrogen is the Holy Grail for the left. At least, for some on the left. Many on the left (and, it seems, on the right too) want to replace natural gas with 100% hydrogen in gas-fired power plants because natgas produces carbon dioxide when it burns, and hydrogen does not. Except (we learned from this article), hydrogen power generation has one huge, glaring, problem…