No Bond for 2nd MVP Tree-Sitter – Sitting Butt in Jail Until Trial
Nearly two weeks ago MDN reported that the final two “tree sitters” (a man and a woman) who were illegally blocking the path of Mountain Valley Pipeline by living for months/years at the top of several trees, were finally removed from the trees where they were living by law enforcement (see Final Two MVP Tree Sitters Arrested, One in Jail Until Trial). The judge in the case ordered the woman (from Vermont) to sit her butt in jail until her trial because she’s a flight risk and may scarper back up a tree somewhere. The judge has just ordered the same sentence for the man (from Massachusetts). He’s a flight risk too and has demonstrated a total disregard for the law, so he now gets to sit his butt in jail until the trial as well.
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The expert number crunchers at our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), now have the lowdown on how the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting partial shutdown of the American economy affected energy use in 2020. Our country saw the largest one-year decline in energy usage–ever. Last year’s energy usage dipped 7% from the previous year. The biggest loser was the transportation sector which decreased energy usage by 15%. Even the residential sector with people staying home saw a slight decrease of 1% last year.
The headline of this post and indeed the post itself (below) is not our view or opinion. It was authored by an oil and gas industry veteran, David Blackmon, writing on the Forbes magazine website. Yes, we previously covered the absolute disaster that Biden is pedaling as an “infrastructure” plan (see 
NATIONAL: Janet Yellen: Climate change poses ‘existential threat’ to financial markets; INTERNATIONAL: European demand driving U.S. LNG exports – LNG recap; Iraq moves to exploit its massive natural gas reserves.
Last week, after months and months of dithering around, the Ohio legislature passed a bill that overturns and rescinds House Bill (HB) 6, legislation adopted in 2019 due to $61 million in bribes spread around by FirstEnergy (see 
Talk about using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. The two U.S. Senators from Massachusetts, Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren and Ed “Lackey” Markey, have reintroduced a bill that would ban the use of compressor stations along natural gas pipelines if those pipelines happen to export some of the gas flowing through them to Canada or Mexico. Do these idiots understand how much gas is imported and exported with Canada and Mexico every single day? That they propose to shut down all of it, simply so they can shut down a single compressor station in Weymouth, Mass., is sick and twisted…
Some days it’s tough. You try to keep your head held high, but then you read of someone you (used to) highly respect, someone like former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, Mike Krancer, who now supports Pennsylvania being forced to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which is nothing more than an obscene carbon tax that would force gas-fired power plants out of existence. Krancer bases his support on the flimsiest of excuses: That the tax revenues raised by RGGI (coming out of the pockets of ALL Pennsylvanians) will help plug a few more of the hundreds of thousands of old/abandoned conventional oil and gas wells throughout the state. Really Mike?
The vicious, relentless attacks on our freedoms and liberties in New York State continue. We can’t even catch our breath with the assaults coming so fast and furious. The latest salvo is by NY State Sen. Jessica Ramos (Democrat, East Elmhurst) who has proposed the Clean Futures Act (S.5939) which would not only ban the permitting and building of new natural gas-fired power plants throughout the state, it would also ban “the permitting of all new major facilities that burn fossil fuels, not just those that sell power to the energy grid.” In other words, any large office building, factory, etc. that gets built would not be able to heat with natural gas or fuel oil. New York is already closed for business, can you imagine the wholesale flight from the state should this Communist law get passed?
The Enverus U.S. rig count continues to climb (a good sign). For the week ending March 31, the U.S. rig count climbed another 6 active rigs to 519. The oil-focused Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale each added four new rigs. The Marcellus stayed even at 33 active rigs, and the Ohio Utica stayed even at 12 active rigs (although the Marcellus dry gas lost a rig and Marcellus wet picked up a rig). The other major shale gas play, the Haynesville, picked up a rig and now operates 48 active rigs.
This is how stupid liberals are: They think banning fossil fuels, like natural gas, will lead to less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It doesn’t. Citywide (and soon statewide) bans preventing the use of natural gas for cooking and home heating actually force the use of *more* natural gas, not less. We explain how and why below.
As we have in previous years, MDN will not publish today (Friday) in observance of Good Friday and the Easter holiday. We hope you enjoy this blessed time of year!
As you can probably divine from our headline, we’re not fans of the so-called “Bipartisan” Policy Center–a group founded by leftist Democrats and RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), which is how mainstream/Democrat media defines bipartisanship. As near as we can determine, the BPC is devoid of anyone who calls him or herself a conservative. But, whatever. The big news is that Toby Rice, CEO of EQT Corporation, has joined the BPC’s American Energy Innovation Council (AEIC) where his expertise will be used “to assist in accelerating the mission toward a clean energy economy.” Good luck Toby.
Epsilon Energy concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. Epsilon doesn’t typically do its own drilling. The company joint venture partners with (gives money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other company typically does the drilling. Just yesterday our headline story was about Epsilon suing Chesapeake over Chessy’s refusal to honor a jv agreement and allow Epsilon to drill four wells in Susquehanna County, PA (see 
According to S&P Global Platts, natural gas production from the Marcellus/Utica in 1Q21 is up nearly 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), now averaging 33.2 Bcf/d. That’s an increase of 2.8% compared with 1Q20. The problem is the interstate transmission pipelines flowing M-U gas are nearly full and the increase in production means we are beginning to see too much natgas piling up, leading to lower spot prices here in the northeast. However, not all sub-regions in the M-U are seeing an uptick in production.