FERC Should Stop “Shaming” NatGas, Return to Original Charter
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was established in 1977 as a replacement for the Federal Power Commission. The agency’s mandate was to determine whether wholesale electricity prices were unjust and unreasonable and, if so, to regulate pricing and order refunds for overcharges to ratepayers. Over the years FERC’s mission grew to include the licensing and regulation of hydropower projects; the approval and regulation of interstate oil and gas pipelines; and ensuring the reliability of the nation’s electric power grids. FERC was created as an *economic* agency, NOT an environmental agency. It’s time for FERC to return to its original charter and quit trying to use health and environmental impacts (non-economic factors) to steer decisions on projects.
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OTHER U.S. REGIONS: New England natural gas and electricity prices increase sharply; U.S. driller Presidio in advanced talks to buy Exxon shale gas wells; NATIONAL: Oil over $90 a barrel as winter weather threatens production; US weekly LNG exports down by 3 from last week; Oil frackers brace for end of the U.S. shale boom; BlackRock pushing firms towards energy transition; Biden administration blocks more investments in American energy security; Fossil fuel groups slam Biden Fed nominee for her ‘vendetta’ against US energy companies.
Once again Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, is turning accidents, including an accident that caused an explosion of the newly completed 
Yesterday MDN told you about Pennsylvania, the state with perhaps the most abandoned and orphaned wells of any U.S. state (estimated at over 200,000 such wells, although the officially recognized number is 8,000+) has received some pocket change, $25 million, out of a promised $104 million, to begin the work of plugging some of those wells (see 
We can’t resist a good railroad story. We’ve always loved them (we know, we’re weird). Here’s a good railroad story for you: Frack sand company Smart Sand, Inc., headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, has just opened for business and is shipping frack sand to a brand new transloading facility in Waynesburg (Greene County), Pennsylvania.
Anecdotally in reading articles about electric power production in New England, we know that almost all electricity is produced in the region by natural gas (unless they run low, then they use fuel oil). We also know a majority of the electricity produced in the PJM region, including the M-U area, is also produced by natural gas. What we didn’t know (but do now) is that the vast majority of electricity in the southeastern U.S. is produced by natural gas. Most of the molecules feeding southeast gas plants come from the M-U.
This *really* has our blood boiling. The same Democrat politicians in New England who have blocked new natural gas pipelines from the Marcellus (just 200 miles away) to their region, preferring so-called “renewable energy” instead, have just asked the hapless, incompetent Secretary of the Dept. of Energy, Jennifer Granholm (a fellow Democrat) to restrict LNG exports so their constituents don’t have to suffer the pain of their (the politicians’) decision to block pipelines. We’re talking about Massachusetts’ two U.S. Senators, Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren and Ed “Lackey” Markey, and Sen. Pat “Leaky” Leahy whose home state of Vermont has banned all fracking and blocks pipelines. Talk about chutzpah!
Our apologies that this latest weekly permit update is a day late. Normally we issued these updates on Wednesdays. Yesterday the Pennsylvania database we use to locate information on new permits issued was throwing an error. We alerted the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, which maintains the database, and they got it fixed sometime last night. So we’re back! Our thanks to the programmers at the DEP.
A month ago MDN brought you the news that UGI Corporation, one of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility companies, had cut a deal to buy the Stonehenge Appalachia Midstream natural gas gathering system in Butler County, PA, for $190 million (see 
National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). For several years the company has fought a battle to run a tiny pipeline to its Greenpoint, Brooklyn facility, to provide extra natural gas. That project is being investigated by the Biden administration on charges of racism (see 
In recent weeks and months, MDN has beat the drum about the high price of natural gas and electricity (generated by burning natural gas) in New England (
Last year the state of Texas passed a new law that says the state government and its agencies will not do business with banks and investment firms that refuse to fund or do business with fossil fuel companies. A few weeks ago MDN told you the West Virginia State Senate is rapidly advancing a similar bill (see