Congressman Intros Natural Gas Repeal Act to Axe IRA Methane Tax
After the shocking news that U.S. Senator Joe Manchin had sold out his state and the entire country by agreeing to support the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bill last summer, the details began to come out about just how bad this bill really is for the oil and gas industry. First and foremost, it slaps a new tax on natural gas production (see Joe Manchin’s Green New Deal Cave Slaps O&G with Big Methane Tax). We brought you a deep dive into how this onerous new tax will work (see A Closer Look at New Manchin Methane Tax – Part of IRA). Yesterday, Congressman August Pfluger (Republican from Texas), introduced H.R. 484, the “Natural Gas Repeal Act” which will eliminate the Natural Gas Tax imposed by President Joe Biden in the IRA. Love it!
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Today it’s fashionable to go along with the crowd and bash fossil fuels and fossil energy. If you’re a politician and you actually stick up for fossil energy, you don’t get invited to parties with all the cool kids. The thing is, those who bash fossil energy depend on fossil energy for about 90% of the things they use every single day. Do they know? Do they care? If we were to eliminate all fossil energy in the next 5-10 years (a metaphysical impossibility), it would instantly transport these dopes back into the Stone Age.
From time to time, we’ve brought you news about some of the more radical (and violent) people who irrationally hate fossil fuels–members of groups like Extinction Rebellion and its spinoff, Just Stop Oil. Some of their members are the kids who recently tried to deface a Vincent van Gogh painting in London (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: EPA to deny permission for continued operation of SWPA coal ash disposal; NATIONAL: U.S. crude oil production will increase to new records in 2023 and 2024; Democrats, eco groups take aim at other home appliances amid gas stove debate; Fossil fuel profits roar back; Do Chinese donations explain Biden’s energy policies?; INTERNATIONAL: Fundamentals strong enough for $90+ oil period.
The Long Ridge Energy Terminal, host to a Utica shale gas-fired power plant that went online in November 2021, scheduled brief downtime for routine maintenance during the fourth quarter of 2022. But when the techs started to analyze the equipment, they discovered a problem, turning a couple of weeks of downtime into more than a month.
The clown judges who occupy the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circus) appear ready to reject a water permit granted by the Virginia State Water Control Board to help finish up the 94% complete Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Three judges from the 4th Circus were appointed back in 2017 to hear appeals by Big Green groups against the project. All three judges are profoundly bigoted and prejudiced against natural gas pipeline projects. Yesterday, the three clowns heard oral arguments from the foreign-backed Sierra Club (and its cronies) arguing the Control Board’s approval of a permit to cross streams and wetlands violates the federal Clean Water Act.
A Marcellus gas-fired power plant in Nicetown (a neighborhood in North Philadelphia) received a permit to build in 2017 (see 
A combination of federal, state, and local grants totaling $6 million will be used to extend a natural gas pipeline to the Cumberland Industrial Park and residences near Bluefield, WV (Mercer County). The Mercer County Commission is chipping in $1 million. The state of WV is giving $2 million. And WV Sen. Shelley Moore Capito secured $3 million from the federal government. Work will begin “soon” on the project.
MDN has highlighted Capstone Turbine Corporation, a California company that manufactures small electric-generating plants that run on natural gas, several times in the past (
Credit where credit is due. Freeport LNG, which has been offline since an explosion and fire in June 2022, has changed the target date to restart operations at the facility multiple times over the past few months. (We care because Marcellus/Utica molecules flow to the facility.) Various experts have weighed in with estimates that Freeport won’t restart until February or possibly March (see 
On January 18, 2022, Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company (ESNG, a subsidiary of Chesapeake Utilities Corporation) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to construct and operate a new natural gas-fired compressor unit and ancillary facilities at its existing Bridgeville Compressor Station in Sussex County, Delaware (called the Southern Expansion Project). Right away, the odious radicals of Food and Water Watch filed an official protest. It took nearly a year, but (as we’re just learning now) on Dec. 16, FERC issued full approval for the project. The new compressor unit will flow an extra 7.3 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) of natural gas to new residential, commercial, and industrial customers along the Delmarva Peninsula.