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. As usual, emphasis is added.
Anti-Capitalist AOC Sells Shirts to
Fund the Green New Deal and Herself!
Unless this is some stupid political stunt, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress has a website where the socialist twit sells merchandise at high prices to other socialist twits to fund her anti-capitalist campaigns. Only in America!
Click the image to get your $27 natural gas dried tee shirt to fund AOC and the Green New Deal
It’s really quite remarkable isn’t it? AOC is resorting to cheap capitalism of the grossest sort to fund her socialism. Call it clever, if you wish, but does she realize every such dyed tee shirt is also dried to sell (cured) using high-power natural gas powered dryers? Assuredly not. Hat Tip: R. Nolan.
Yeah, And Western Maryland Needs Natural Gas Too
This is a great commentary about Maryland’s Eastern Shore and its need for natural gas, a commentary by State Senator Stephen S. Hershey Jr., representing Caroline, Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne’s counties, that could have just as easily been written about much of Upstate New York:
Of the Eastern Shore’s nine counties, only a few have reliable utility-scale natural gas service. Somerset County does not, nor do the counties in the district I represent on the Upper Shore.
Montgomery County’s Biotech Corridor depends on natural gas to bring cutting edge pharmaceutical and genetic engineering products to market. McCormick & Co. relies on natural gas to power its operations as the world’s leading spice manufacturer. Neither McCormick nor Novavax are opening nor expanding on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Why would they when portions of the Eastern Shore lack the critical clean cost-effective energy infrastructure that they require?
I routinely hear from Eastern Shore economic development officers, like Somerset County’s Danny Thompson, bemoaning the absence of natural gas. They often call it the number one barrier to recruiting companies to the region. This, on top of the lack of a sufficient broadband infrastructure, defines our Eastern Shore counties; we are perceived to be stuck in the 19th century.
They tell us to focus on farming, yet our agricultural economy is subject to the volatile commodity prices of corn and soybeans, and our poultry farmers are vulnerable to the persistent attacks by many of the same Western Shore environmental advocates who oppose natural gas pipelines. The result is that the Eastern Shore trails the Western Shore counties in just about every economic aspect.
Somerset County, by all measures, is the most impoverished county in the state. According to the Federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, Somerset’s 2018 per capita income was $31,562 — ranking dead last among Maryland counties and about a third of Montgomery County’s leading $89,690. The arrival of natural gas there should be a cause for celebration.
But Debbie-downers from the Western Shore, who probably couldn’t even point to Somerset County on a map, are unhappy. They say that this is an environmental justice issue, as the proposed Del-Mar Energy Pathway pipeline will go through low-income census tracts.
It’s a bit rich to have residents of counties whose economies are thriving because of their access to modern infrastructure condemn a region for wanting the same infrastructure to enable economic development. The only way to lift those census tracts out of poverty is to bring economic opportunity, that will come through infrastructure projects like this…
Few may remember, but in 2014, the Maryland General Assembly, against the wishes of all three Eastern Shore senators, passed legislation effectively killing the Great Wind Renewable Energy project in Somerset County. So, which is it?
Well said. Now, how about Western Maryland which has been denied fracking by the same “Debbie-downers” despite drilling all around them. Who exactly is looking out for them?
New York City’s Mayor Leads It
Straight Over the Cliff Into the Hudson
America’s cities are in deep, deep trouble, perhaps beyond remedy in many cases, all because they keep electing crooked, incompetent ideologues as their leaders. Bill deBlasio is, incredibly, not the worst in relative terms but he governs, arguably, the most important city in the land. He opposed the NESE pipeline and now he wants to starve Brooklynites out of gas in the name of protecting them:
Mayor de Blasio has come out against a controversial project to create a natural gas pipeline in northern Brooklyn.
“Climate change is an existential threat to our city and we must transition quickly to clean energy,” he said in a Thursday statement. “I am voicing my opposition to National Grid’s North Brooklyn Pipeline because we cannot justify the environmental impacts on the largely Black and Brown residents of Brooklyn associated with an unnecessary pipeline expansion.
Click to enlarge
“Racial and environmental justice go hand-in-hand, and National Grid has failed to clearly demonstrate that this pipeline is needed to keep New Yorkers warm and safe,” Hizzoner concluded. “I am calling on them to withdraw this project immediately.”
National Grid broke ground on the project in 2018 and has faced protests from activists and some lawmakers since.
The seven-mile pipeline would bring natural gas from Pennsylvania and run from Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick and East Williamsburg to National Grid’s Maspeth Ave. depot.
A number of blocks in those areas have already been torn up to make way for the project, according to reports.
National Grid has said its “Metropolitan Natural Gas Reliability Project” will boost system safety and reliability and help economic growth.
Earlier this year, de Blasio issued an executive order stating the city would not support any expansion to the fossil fuel infrastructure.
“Our climate crisis demands an end to new fossil fuel infrastructure,” stated Daniel Zarrilli, the mayor’s chief climate policy advisor. “We are divesting our pensions from fossil fuels, investing billions into job-creating climate solutions like solar, wind, and hydro, and fighting destructive projects like the Williams pipeline and the North Brooklyn pipeline that are undermining our future.”
Crooked. Incompetent. Ideologue. Same as Andrew Cuomo, which is why they hate each other. It’s hard to believe New Yorkers are so oblivious to the facts that they have repeatedly reelected the two, who are destroying everything around them.National Grid is likewise an embarrassment. They caved on NESE at the moment of victory, fill their website with political garbage with the idea can appease their enemies with fluff and offer not one bit of advocacy on their own part. You can’t a city or a company that won’t fight for themselves.
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