Faux “Conservative” Tom Ridge Attacks Republicans re Environment
We have no use for so-called establishment Republicans who claim to be “conservative.” They’re liars, and chief among them is former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. Yesterday Ridge published an op-ed in the left-of-Communist Mao Zedong The Atlantic magazine, on “Earth Day,” to attack the Republican Party. Ridge says he’s a conservative Republican (he’s not) and he targets his own party for “abandoning environmental issues.” Ridge decries the party’s quest to fix the ultra-radical lunacy of recent years. Shame on Ridge. Has he (finally) gone senile?
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Michael Moore, the uber-leftist filmmaker, has just trained his sights on destroying his own leftist brethren in the Big Green movement. Two days ago Moore released a full-length documentary on Youtube called “Planet of the Humans” (embedded below) questioning the claims of “green” wind and solar farms, pointing out the environmental destruction being caused by so-called “renewables.” Moore is no longer on the Christmas card list of Big Green groups after this one.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: CNX Responds to the COVID-19 Crisis; Montgomery County to receive $181,000 rebate for using compressed natural gas; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Reeling Oklahoma oil producers win right to keep leases while wells shut; NATIONAL: ‘Roller coaster’ continues at full speed for natural gas futures; Senators call for federal government loans to U.S. energy producers; Baker Hughes confident natural gas markets improving; Class 8 natural gas truck sales increase nearly 30 percent.
Yesterday MDN told you that miracle of miracles, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has finally, after more than two years of evaluation, granted a permit to build a wastewater injection well in Plum Boro in Allegheny County, near Pittsburgh (see 
A fairy tale is a made-up story. Fiction. Something not rooted in truth or science. That’s what the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently issued in a so-called report about how man-made global warming (euphemized to be “climate change”) is going to toast the Keystone State. Aside from the fact man-made global warming is non-existent, want to know how we know this report is a fairy tale? The DEP, with a straight face, says chicken farms will double by 2050…because the warmer climate will make PA more conducive to raising chickens and by then it will be too hot for chicken farms in southern states.
One of the worst overreaches and offenses of the Obamadroids was to redefine what “waters of the United States” (or WOTUS) actually means. As they were getting ready to leave power, the Obama EPA redefined WOTUS as everything down to large mud puddles–no lie (see 
The number crunchers at our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), have analyzed recent additions to the national electric grid–the new power generating plants that have been added. As you know, electricity can be generated by coal, natural gas, water (hydro), nuclear and yes, so-called renewables. At first blush, the report issued by EIA yesterday looks to be a win for renewables. In 2019 onshore wind added 9,100 megawatts of new electricity and solar added 5,300 MW of new electricity (combined total of 14,400). In 2019 natural gas added 8,300 MW of new electricity to the grid. Yet when you look at the bigger picture, how much electricity is generated by any given single source, natgas produces far more electricity than any other source.
As the price of oil continues to crash and burn, U.S. shale oil companies are “living a nightmare.” Companies are now laying off employees by the thousands and beginning to shut-in wells. Everyone is holding their collective breath waiting for a tidal wave of bankruptcies, hoping it won’t come, fearing it will. What is it like living inside the oil price crash bubble in Texas? Believe it or not, an article in the well known fake news source New York Times does a pretty good job of describing the hell that America’s shale oil companies are now living through. A quote from one operator: “April is going to be terrible, but May is going to be impossible.” And, “I’m just living a nightmare.” That about sums it up.
Earth Day is the day Big Green has a collective orgasm over Mom Earth and their efforts to keep her clean. We have no issue with responsible stewardship of our natural resources and keeping the environment clean. Everyone (with a brain) aspires to that. We do have a problem with worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. Worshiping the earth is what Earth Day is all about. Each year it gets nuttier than the last. This year is the 50th year so-called Earth Day (as a “thing”) has been celebrated. We celebrate Earth Day each year by celebrating the life-changing good brought to humankind by fossil fuels.
Frankly, we’re speechless. Yesterday the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil for near-term May contracts went from trading at $18.27 per barrel (bbl) to minus $37.63, a drop of $55.90 in a single day. This is the first time in history sellers of oil in the U.S. (more properly the contracts to buy oil) are paying buyers to accept it–because the sellers have no place to store physical oil should they keep the contracts. This is a complete and utter meltdown in the oil market. Trading for May contracts ends today, thank God. The June contract is (so far) showing deals trading at $15.59/bbl. That’s still a disaster, but not as bad as paying someone else to take the oil! What caused this price crash, and where does it go from here?
Although the NYMEX futures price for natural gas zoomed up to $1.92 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) yesterday, the price for natgas didn’t go up everywhere. As you know, there is no one price for natural gas, although the most quoted price is the Henry Hub benchmark. Yesterday at the Waha trading hub in West Texas (the Permian Basin), the traded price for natgas sunk to a new, historic low: -$7.67/Mcf. It closed the day at -$5.79/Mcf. That is, sellers were paying buyers to take their gas. Why?
With yesterday’s historic crash in the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil comes a big boost in the stock price for a number of Marcellus/Utica drillers. As we’ve outlined multiple times, but will repeat here again, stock traders believe that with the crash in oil prices and U.S. shale oil drillers laying down rigs faster than we can count, the high volume of “associated gas” coming from the oilfields will vastly decrease. That means less supply in the market. With less supply and the same (or increasing) demand comes higher prices for natgas. And higher prices for natgas means more profits and likely more new drilling for Marcellus/Utica drillers. Hence, investors are snapping up stocks for M-U drilling companies.
In early 2018, the federal EPA approved a new Marcellus wastewater injection well for the Pittsburgh suburb of Plum Boro (see 
There is an ongoing question of whether or not the Ohio Marketable Titles Act (MTA), which impacts Utica shale rights, can be used to return previously severed mineral rights back to a surface landowner, or whether the MTA is superseded by Ohio Dormant Minerals Act (DMA). In February 2019, Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals said the MTA *does* still apply to mineral rights (see 
Spectra Energy’s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline project is an $876 million expansion of the existing Algonquin pipeline system designed to carry 342 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to New England states that badly need the gas. On March 3, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued its final approval for the project, allowing the project to go forward. Construction began in 2015 and, following extreme opposition from New York State over a small portion of the project, it finally went online in 2016.