PA Green Group Uses Kids to Sue Feds for “Indifference to Science”
In August 2015, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by a group of left coast radicalized children who want to force the federal government to become communist and “force action” on mythical climate change (see Group of Kids Sues U.S. Govt to Force Action on “Climate Change”). There have been a number of legal twists and turns since that time, but the bottom line is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in California), often called the “Ninth Circus” because of the clowns who pass for judges who sit on the bench, in March ruled the lawsuit can proceed (see 9th Circus Allows Climate Lawsuit by Radicalized Kids to Proceed). What we didn’t know/realize is that Pennsylvania has its own version of the same lawsuit playing out. The Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council (radical enviro group) glommed onto two children to perpetrate the same kind of fraudulent lawsuit in federal court in the Keystone State. In November 2017, CAC and the two kids they’ve tricked sued Donald Trump (President), Scott Pruitt (EPA), Rick Perry (Dept. of Energy) and Ryan Zinke (Dept. of Interior) claiming their collective actions in “rolling back” environmental protections (put in place by Lord Obama) shows “reckless indifference to science” and should not be allowed. No, this is not the script for a sitcom. This is real. On May 3, the defendants (the federal government) filed a motion to dismiss this nonsensical lawsuit. On May 11, the CAC and radicalized kids responded asking the court to not dismiss…
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Can you imagine an oil company being ashamed of the word “oil”? Sounds like a European thing–and indeed it is. Statoil, Norway’s largest oil company (in fact, the single largest company in Norway period) with operations in 36 countries around the world and over 20,000 employees–is ashamed of its own name. And so, as of today, Statoil is changing its name to Equinor. “Equi” stands for equal, equality, or equilibrium (take your pick), and “nor” stands for Norway. Whatever. We mention this bit of tomfoolery because Statoil (now Equinor) still has meaningful leases and assets in the Ohio Utica. According to MDN’s forthcoming 
A shocking and at times farcical tale of how an environmental lawsuit turned into the world’s biggest fraud is revealed in a new play. The world premiere of “The $18-Billion Prize,” based on the true story of rainforest natives and their New York lawyer “fighting for justice” against one of the world’s biggest oil companies, opens May 19 at San Francisco’s Phoenix Theatre. Performances continue through June 3. Written, or perhaps a better word is assembled, by Phelim McAleer and Jonathan Leaf, the play uses exact words from transcripts of court documents. In 1993, Steven Donziger, a Harvard-educated American lawyer, represented indigenous groups from Ecuador’s rainforest in a class action lawsuit against Chevron–a shakedown. The case received an enormous amount of media attention, including major coverage by Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and 60 Minutes to name a few, and it drew the support of international celebrities. Chevron, to their credit, fought back. An American court found evidence of fraud and ordered Donziger to hand over his files and diaries, which exposed a massive bribery and corruption scheme. The play will make you laugh, and cry, and make you angry that such a long-running fraud could be perpetrated here in the United States…
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Decision looms regarding proposed natgas facility in Keene, NH; Hilcorp awarded Utica permit in Lawrence County, PA; Louisiana gets tough on pipeline protesters with new law; FERC tax decision prompts fight between gas operators/shippers; western Canada sees chance to one-up US Gulf Coast in LNG export fight; and more!
Nearly a year ago MDN reported that Big Green group THE Delaware Riverkeeper (aka Maya van Rossum) and the odious Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council (CAC) had suffered a crushing legal defeat in their attempt to interfere with shale drilling on the opposite side of the state from where the Delaware River and Philly is located (see 
Perhaps our headline uses a poor choice of words, but that’s what immediately comes to mind in describing the enormous amount of gas (and oil) production coming from America’s shale plays–in particular the Marcellus/Utica (for gas) and the Permian (for oil). Yesterday our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued our favorite monthly report, the Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). The DPR is the EIA’s best guess, based on expert data crunchers, as to how much each of the U.S.’s seven major shale plays will produce for both oil and natural gas in the coming month. We sound like a broken record, but the numbers continue to be mind-blowing–hitting new all-time, breath-taking highs each month. This month is no exception. Last month the EIA predicated natural gas output from the seven major shale plays would go up another 1+ billion cubic feet per day (see 
West Virginia has a long, proud history as a coal producer. And according to West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney, some 95% of the electricity produced and used in the Mountain State comes from coal-fired plants. However, natural gas burns cleaner than coal, and frankly, natgas is now cheaper than coal. Yet WV still has not permitted or allowed a single new gas-fired plant to be constructed. Why not? The obvious answer is because Big Coal is pushing back and pushing back hard. Last September WV’s Secretary of Commerce, Woody Thrasher, admitted publicly that his beloved state is unfriendly to new natgas-fired electric plant projects (see 
Last November we updated you on a lawsuit filed by a group of anti-fossil fuelers in Penn Township (Westmoreland County), PA (see 
MDN has previously written about the Appalachian NGL (natural gas liquids) Storage Hub, a $10+ billion infrastructure project with no specific location identified as yet, but West Virginia often named (see 
On Friday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued Dominion Energy permission to begin construction of the actual pipeline for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project–in West Virginia. ACP is a (now) $6.5 billion project, up from a projected $5 billion due to delays from regulatory agencies and frivolous lawsuits filed by Big Green groups, that will run from WV through Virginia and into North Carolina–almost to the border with South Carolina. Until now FERC had allowed prep work, like tree cutting. But now actual pipeline construction can begin, which is a momentous occasion, worthy of celebration!…
Last week RCL Chemical announced it has partnered with Y2X Infrastructure to build a $325 million gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Floyd County, Kentucky. GTL plants convert natural gas, a hydrocarbon, into other hydrocarbons, like diesel fuel, gasoline, solvents and waxes. An abundance of cheap natural gas in the Marcellus/Utica is one of the prime motivators for establishing GTL plants in the region. Although we’ve heard plenty of talk about such plants, we’ve only seen a few prototypes get built thus far. The RCL/Y2X story caught our attention because Kentucky hates new gas pipelines, yet wants to build a plant that will use gas coming from pipelines (see 
What’s happening with Kinder Morgan’s $4 billion Utica Marcellus Texas Pipeline (UMTP) project? In February MDN told you that Kentucky antis went to court to try and block a plan by Kinder Morgan to convert a portion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) that flows natural gas from the Gulf Coast to the northeast, to reverse the pipeline and flow natural gas liquids (NGLs) from the Marcellus/Utica region to the Gulf Coast (see 
Here’s a theme we have been writing about more and more–because it’s important. That theme is this: Oil drillers in Texas (and New Mexico), in the Permian Basin, are drilling so fast and so furious to get oil out of the ground, that they are creating an overabundance of natural gas that increasingly competes with Marcellus/Utica gas. How? Every time you drill for one hydrocarbon, like oil, other hydrocarbons often come of the ground with it. In this case, natural gas. The unintended but significant quantities of natgas coming out of the ground along with Permian oil is referred to in the biz as “associated gas.” As we wrote in March, natural gas prices in Texas did something that hasn’t happened in years–they became cheaper than the price of natural gas selling in the saturated Marcellus/Utica (see