Natural Gas Now Best Picks – March 11, 2023
Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.
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Readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy. This week; an anti-ESG county in NJ, climate brats, anti-intersectionality and opening PA for business.
Look for these stories below, including links to the original articles!
Warren County, NJ, Takes Stand Against ESG!
This is absolutely superb. Warren County, New Jersey encompasses places such as Belvidere, Blairstown, Hackettstown and Phillipsburg, a mix of farmland and town with both blue and white collar populations who might be considered real America. And, they hate ESG.
The Warren County Commissioners have taken a stand against preferential treatment or discrimination based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards…
“While it may ‘feel good’ to tout that you’ll only invest or do business with companies that have high ESG scores, the scores themselves are unregulated and vary from scorecard service to service,” Commissioner Director Lori Ciesla said, adding “Without uniformity and consistency, the scores can be manipulated, misleading, and misused. There are other measures and methods for us to deem which businesses are sound and responsible, and we will continue to use reliable factors when doing business with others of behalf of the county.”
Commissioners Kern, Ciesla and Sarnoski
…Commissioner James R. Kern III stated: “We have a fiduciary duty to the taxpayers of this county and our most important function is to handle their hard-earned dollars with the utmost respect. Any policy or preferential treatment that puts ideology above fiscal responsibility is wrong and will have no place here in Warren County.”
“When our pensions and 401Ks decline, and our economy fails because we care more about how a company thinks rather than how it performs, we will have ESG to blame,” Commissioner Jason J. Sarnoski said…
“ESG is an attack on our individual liberties, and it will be the death of capitalism in America,” Commissioner Sarnoski said, adding, “It attacks our First and Second Amendment rights and picks favorites in our economy. Starting with big business and now trickling down into our individual lives, I fear a future where every person has an ESG credit score, and if that person’s business or views do not align with what ‘society’ deems correct then their score will be low.”
Sarnoski continued, “ESG could affect an individual’s ability to borrow, grow a business, or follow the American Dream. This resolution assures that Warren County’s investments and contracts, to the extent that the law allows, will be based on actual performance and not some arbitrary ‘woke’ rating. I am proud to be the first New Jersey government entity to pass this kind of anti-ESG resolution.”
So nice to see this and particularly pleasing is that it most annoy, to no end, Gov. Phil “Panderbear” Murphy, the NJ Sierra Club Chapter and the Deputy Director of the Delaware Riverkeeper, New Jersey residents all.
All hail the Warren County Commissioners!
Hat Tip: J.S.
Climate Brats and Other Useful Idiots
I know little about this website other than the fact the principal is an Ayn Rand fan, but he gets it about right, in my view, with this:
Today’s make-believe democracies are overflowing with useful idiots. They latch on to one lame-brained notion after another, perhaps to give meaning to their confused and pointless lives. They’re a bit like cats chasing the red dot from their master’s laser pointer. The Ukraine, Covid, sex perversions, Trump, racism, climate change—it’s one thing after another.
Climate change is one of the central scams being promoted by the World Economic Forum as part of their Great Reset. It seems everything that comes out of the WEF—I can’t think of any exceptions — is antithetical to the traditional values of Western Civilization, prominently including free markets and personal liberty.
We’ve discussed the COVID hysteria and what looks like World War III starting in the Ukraine. But the biggest thing, with the longest legs, is climate change. Full disclosure: I believe in climate change. The climate has been changing constantly since the world came together about four and a half billion years ago. And it’ll continue to change.
The problem, however, isn’t climate change itself but the process of indoctrinating the public, especially young people, with the belief that humanity is destroying Mother Earth.
They’re given snippets of science, like the fact that the world has been generally warming since the mid-19th century. Well, sure, it has because the planet went through what’s known as the Little Ice Age from the 16th through the 19th centuries. It has cyclically been warming for the last 150 years. As a matter of fact, the world has been warming since the end of the last Great Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago.
The “global warming” people have found a great excuse for changing not just the economy but the way literally everything works. My view is that they’re basically anti-human—they actually hate and fear people.
All of this is demonstrably true and all that’s left out of the equation is the fact the these climate brats have no clue they’re being used as shills by corporatist elites who merely look to make trillions off ratepayers and taxpayers in a “transition” that only amounts to shifting ever more wealth to themselves.
Hat Tip: D.S.
Intersectionality is one of these new phony words intended to show that all leftist causes work together. The reality is that leftist causes more often tend to work against each other. That’s because earthly life is about tradeoffs, a fact leftists fail to grasp because they are impassioned true believers in causes that serve as substitute religions for them. Accordingly, they tolerate no dissent and, invariably, their causes conflict at some point. Here’s an example from our cousins across the pond:
Plans to burn hydrogen instead of natural gas risk being derailed by droughts and water shortages across Britain, the Government’s own climate advisors have warned.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) said that producing hydrogen can require “significant” amounts of water, but resources are likely to be stretched because of a lack of rainfall.
Its warning represents a significant setback to the plans for net zero, which rely heavily on hydrogen for heavy industry and heating.
It made the comments in a wide-ranging report that also warned the Government does not yet have a coherent strategy to make the electricity market carbon neutral by 2035.
Lord Deben, chairman of the CCC, said the government was “asleep at the wheel” on net zero, adding: “We risk losing our early lead at the worst possible time.”
So, going green pits the climate myth against the reality of water shortages. Who knew? Well, anybody with a brain knew, but no one wanted to listen because no dissent from climate orthodoxy is allowed, of course. Call it anti-intersectionality.
Hat Tip. D.B.
Is Pennsylvania Open for Business?
Not As Open As It Could Be!
From our friend Dave Callahan at the Marcellus Shale Coalition:
Gov. Josh Shapiro recently touted an “open for business” outlook and promised to cooperate with the private sector, beginning right here in the Pittsburgh region, to breathe new life into the state’s economy…
Access to affordable and clean energy underpins economic prosperity. Providing roughly 20% of America’s total natural gas production, Pennsylvania is a top contributor to the low-cost, reliable, and clean energy that forms a building block of modern society…
Natural gas is the catalyst to achieving those goals, and we’re blessed to have it in abundance right here in our backyard. From reliably powering homes, hospitals, schools, and businesses to serving as a clean and low-cost feedstock for manufacturing and industrial processes, natural gas powers it all.
We’ve seen the benefits of natural gas extend far beyond the well pad and pipeline infrastructure that drive our economy. These multimillion-dollar capital investments are critical to Main Street Pennsylvania, helping to keep countless mom-and-pop businesses vibrant.
Additionally, liquefied natural gas (LNG) from America has been Europe’s saving grace amid extreme weather and a Russian war of aggression that’s weaponized Moscow’s energy supply.
What we need from elected officials is predictability in the marketplace so that companies looking to invest here can count on projects coming to fruition – and continuing to deliver the benefits we have seen over the past fifteen years.
While the governor has made some encouraging moves, more regulatory certainty is needed to overcome the barriers that have restricted the natural gas industry from reaching its full potential for far too long.
Severe bottlenecks for even the most basic permits hold back production and limit the ability to respond as energy demand fluctuates. An inconsistent permitting process causes misalignment across operating areas in the Commonwealth; some regional offices take more than a year to make key permit determinations, while others need only a few months…
Consider the pipeline woes that have made our region among the most energy-constrained, despite being one of the world’s largest basins for reserves. Politically motivated lawsuits designed to clog review processes have thwarted the development of essential infrastructure that could safely transport gas from production points to areas that desperately need it.
It’s these types of barriers that we must overcome to truly unlock Pennsylvania’s potential.
Well said, Dave!
Hat Tip: R.N.
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