Prominent Environmentalist Tells Cuomo: You’re Wrong on NatGas
We spotted an op-ed in the left-leaning New York Daily News that surprised and shocked us. Norris McDonald, founder and president of the African American Environmentalist Association, wrote an article as an environmentalist that tells New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo that he’s wrong about pipelines and the continued use, even expanded use, of natural gas. This prominent environmentalist says, “…natural gas remains an important part of the climate change solution.”
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Pennsylvania as the new natural gas giant; Gas, nuclear lobbies butt heads as Senate takes up nuclear-rescue bill; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: The increasing importance of natural gas in Michigan; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas-fired combined-cycle capacity surpasses coal-fired capacity; Shale gas majors succumb to Wall Street pressure.
Pennsylvania State Senators Camera Bartolotta (Washington County) and Pat Stefano (Fayette County) have just beaten PA Gov. Tom Wolf at his own game. Wolf has been gallivanting around the state like Santa Claus promoting a plan called Restore PA, a plan that will get rid of lead paint in schools, fix flooding, repair old roads, give rural residents internet access, and just about any other goody you can think of. Wolf wants to pay for it by slapping a severance tax on the Marcellus industry. Bartolotta and Stefano are introducing two bills that would fund Wolf’s folly–but do so by allowing new shale drilling on state land. Game, set, and match!
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rights, can be used to return previously severed mineral rights back to a surface landowner, or whether the MTA is superseded by Ohio Dormant Minerals Act (DMA).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, Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals said the MTA *does* still apply to mineral rights (see 
A group of radical leftist groups filed briefs in federal court last Friday asking the court to overturn the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s decision from 2017 that approves and allows the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). The court case, before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, is the next phase of the battle over ACP. We name names below for which non-profit agencies should have their tax exemption ripped away because of their overt political activities in opposing ACP.
You may recall MDN covering the story of the compressor station in Michigan that caught fire and exploded in January (see 
Natural gas was front and center at the ninth annual Marcellus and Manufacturing Development Conference, an event of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, held yesterday in Morgantown, WV. Among the speakers was Steve Winberg, U.S. Department of Energy assistant secretary for fossil energy. He mouthed strong support for the Appalachian Basin ethane “hub” saying the region can easily support up to five ethane crackers, and that could lead to $35 billion of investment and 100,000 jobs in the region.
We spotted some interesting comments made by Rick Simmers, chief of Ohio’s Division of Oil and Gas Resources (part of Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources, or ODNR), at the recent Utica Midstream conference in North Canton. Rick recounted the rapid, recent history of Utica drilling in the state, coming from nothing less than a decade ago to now having over 2,500 Utica wells drilled and producing. He also pulled out the crystal ball for a prediction of how many new Utica wells will get drilled both this year and next.
Last week Enbridge, owners of the Texas Eastern Transmission Company (Tetco) pipeline, filed documents with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission showing that Phase II of its Texas Eastern Appalachian Lease (TEAL) Project began service on April 1st. The TEAL project connects to and feeds Utica Shale gas to the NEXUS pipeline.
A joint announcement between Kendra II LLC and De Nora says a new wastewater recycling facility aimed at the shale industry will go online in late May providing drillers in the “heart of the Marcellus Shale” (in Susquehanna County, PA) a new option to recycle and reuse produced water…up to 18,000 barrels a day.
What will Pennsylvania’s future with respect to energy look like 25 years from now? What role will shale gas play? And how will that role affect the state? A group of 35 people began to study that question in the summer of 2017 and the end result, a new study, has just been released (full copy below). According to the study’s results, there are two distinct paths PA can take, resulting in two very different outcomes.