EPA Proposes “Affordable Clean Energy” Plan to Replace Obama CPP
One more piece of the Obama “legacy”–the onerous, wildly unpopular Clean Power Plan (CPP) that assassinates coal powered energy and mortally wounds natural gas in favor of so-called renewable sources of energy–is now history. Well, it will be history after a few more years of legal wrangling. Let’s say the CPP is well on its way to the garbage can of history, where it belongs. The CPP (see The Many Flaws with President Obama’s Clean Power Plan) will be replaced by a new plan released last week by the federal EPA called the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule. Instead of Big Brother dictating what power sources an individual state can and can’t use, ACE empowers states, promotes energy independence, and facilitates economic growth and job creation. “The ACE Rule would restore the rule of law and empower states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide modern, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans,” said EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler. Hmmm, maybe we’re beginning to warm up to swamp-dweller Wheeler after all. If he can pull this off, we’ll feel better about leaving him as head of the agency…
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The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: PA Auditor General DePasquale resurrects old claims of DEP problems; Carnival Cruise to park LNG liner at Canaveral; the next big bet in fracking – water; US natgas supplies & price, again; FERC outsources to help with LNG inspections; US natgas exports go up with new pipes into Mexico; Venezuela to flow gas to Trinidad for liquefaction; Aramco IPO halted; why worry about Russia’s Nord Stream 2; natgas prices in Europe surge; and more!
MDN editor Jim Willis is taking a rare few days off this week, beginning Wednesday and running through Friday. No new MDN stories will be published on those days.
MDN brought you the exciting news that last week a New York “Supreme Court” judge (Supreme Court in NY is a lower court, one step up from county court) overruled a last-minute dirty trick by the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to block a Marcellus-fired electric plant from starting operations (see 
Here we go again. More talk from desperate liberals who irrationally hate fossil fuels, claiming the location of two pipelines in Virginia is “racist.” You didn’t know that an inert metal tube could be racist, did you? Yeah, it’s stupid and silly and beyond words–but there you have it. Our schools are doing such a poor job of educating our citizens, they grow up to believe in wild fairy tales and declare anyone (or anything) that is not their particular skin color must be racist. In Virginia, the Governor’s Advisory Council on Environmental Justice, is recommending to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam that he should illegally (against federal law) rescind federal Clean Water Act permits that allow both the $6.5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (Dominion Energy) and $3.7 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline (EQT Midstream) from crossing the state. The Advisory Council’s tortured thinking is that the pipeline runs through a few poor/black communities–so it MUST be racist. No mention of the fact that such pipelines actually benefit communities and individuals economically. Pipelines get no credit for economically benefiting nearby communities–they only get dinged for flowing an evil fossil fuel that supposedly causes man-made global warming…
It dawned on us, reading yet another story about how EQT/Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) has laid off around half of the MVP workforce, perhaps up to 3,000 people (see 
Radical environmentalists who want to “keep it in the ground”–the “it” being fossil fuels–are emboldened by the actions of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo, you may recall, effectively blocked and stopped in its tracks the federally-approved Constitution Pipeline, in April 2016 (see 
“Hey Jim, we’re tired of reading your rants about antis. Get off it, will ya? Focus on the good news of where drilling and pipeline work is actually happening.” We sometimes get those kinds of emails. What those folks don’t seem to realize is that we are in a fight to the (economic) death with people who hold a dangerous philosophy. They are people who are, in part, funded by Russia (as you’ll see below), working against America’s best interests. They are, in a word, anti-American. And we’re outing them for who they really are. Exposing them to the light of day. Yes, it is important to beat the drum, frequently, to bring to your attention just how the fight is going and who’s engaged in this fight–so you know why it takes so long to drill a well or build a pipeline. Why landowners don’t see more drilling sooner. Why natural gas and NGLs and oil can’t get to market, or get to markets that pay more. There is a reason, and it’s because of groups like the NRDC and Sierra Club…
Last week MDN told you about a George H.W. Bush district court judge in South Carolina who reversed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s order ending the tragedy of Obama’s Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule (see 
In something of a twist, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals elected NOT to officially shut down all construction of the 600+ mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project. You may recall the Sierra Club and several other anti-American Big Green groups convinced the Fourth Circuit to overturn permits granted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) granted to ACP to cross the Blue Ridge Parkway (see 
Although the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, being built by Dominion Energy, is currently idled with no construction due to a directive from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), some communities along the route of the pipeline are still agitating and protesting against it. In one of the more bizarre cases, a black Baptist pastor is whipping up his congregation against the project in rural Buckingham County, VA. But that’s not all. The black pastor is joining forces with a nearby commune (cult?) in Satchidananda Ashram-Yogaville. The Baptist pastor had himself a religious experience when he visited Yogaville, pronouncing their views on religion (opposite of his own) just fine with him–because they both hate the pipeline. Looks like politics comes before God for the good pastor and his congregation…
It’s fun to see all of the many, varied businesses impacted by the shale industry and by “downstream” projects like the mighty $6 billion Shell ethane cracker, currently being constructed in Monaca (Beaver County), PA. One of the reasons for selecting the Monaca site for a cracker is it’s location along the Ohio River, with access to barges. A majority of the components and materials being used to build the cracker are being shipped in by barge. That single project (the Shell cracker) has had and is having a huge economic impact throughout Beaver County and the entire region–especially on the barge industry. After the cracker is complete, output from the plant (plastic pellets) will likely not be shipped by barge, but by rail and truck. However, the cracker will attract a number of new manufacturing facilities to the region, locating there to use the plastic pellets coming from the cracker. Those plants manufacture a variety of products–and many of those products will be shipped by barge. The Pittsburgh region is experiencing a barge shipping renaissance, thanks to the Marcellus/Utica and thanks to the Shell cracker…
Anti-fossil fuel nutters are on a holy mission to stop a 3.5-mile, 8-inch pipeline from being built under the Potomac River by Columbia Gas, from Maryland to West Virginia (see 
The Utica Shale, which underlies much of the Marcellus Shale, also underlies part of Canada’s Quebec province. From time to time we highlight news concerning the Utica in Canada. There hasn’t been much news to highlight over the years since Quebec has had a moratorium on fracking since 2012. But as we reported in December 2016, something of a minor miracle happened–the Quebec National Assembly voted to pass Bill 106, ostensibly to support Quebec’s “clean power plan” (see