Regulation

Trump Admin Considers Strategies to Overturn DRBC Fracking Ban

On Sunday, March 2, MDN friend Tom Shepstone (who writes the must-read Energy Security and Freedom website) participated in a meeting with new EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Congressman Rob Bresnahan, several state elected officials, as well as labor and others regarding energy and other critical issues in Northeast Pennsylvania. While the meeting discussed what is…

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Exactly How President Trump is Unleashing American Energy

Sometimes you have to toot your own horn, especially when the legacy media (which nobody watches, reads, or listens to anymore) won’t do it. On Tuesday, President Trump gave a joint address to Congress. We won’t rehash the endless coverage of that event and the juvenile (quite despicable) performance by Democrats in attendance. One of…

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Europe Begins to Back Down from Imposing Their Regs on Our LNG

The European Union’s idiotic methane regulations will be enforced beginning this year. Domestic (European) oil, gas, and coal companies must monitor, measure and report their emissions. The same restrictions would apply to energy imports from other countries, including the U.S. (see Europeans Presume to Impose Their Regulations on American Gas). The arrogant Europeans presume to…

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WV Legislature Advances Bill to Fine Drillers for Royalty Nonpayment

There are deadbeats in every industry, including (unfortunately) the oil and gas industry. Some O&G producers in West Virginia are gaming the system by not paying landowners/rights owners the royalties they are due. Typically, this does not apply to shale drillers, mostly larger companies. However, with (some, very few) smaller conventional drillers, they just don’t…

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OH Dem Intros Bill to Force Disclosure of Frack Chemical Names

In January 2023, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see OH Gov. Signs Bill Expanding Drilling in State Parks, NatGas “Green”). The law allows shale drilling under (but not on top of) Ohio state-owned land, including state parks. HB 507 encourages (pushes for) more drilling under state-owned…

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Dominion Asks Va. SCC to Approve Chesterfield Gas-Fired Peaker Plan

Dominion Energy plans to build small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see Dominion Plans to Build 1,000-MW Gas Peaker Plant Near Richmond, VA). The Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center (CERC) calls for building four 250-megawatt gas-fired power plants (1,000 MW total) that can jump into action during the coldest and hottest…

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EPA Head Zeldin Recommends Trump Overturn Endangerment Finding

In 2009, during the Obamadroid years, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopted a major regulatory rule called the “endangerment finding.” The finding concluded that six so-called greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) — constitute an endangerment to public health and welfare…

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Virginia SCC Approves Dominion LNG Storage Facility in Greensville

In November 2023, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) agreed with a petition from Dominion Energy subsidiary Virginia Electric and Power Company that requested a planned LNG production, storage, and regasification facility in Greensville County, VA, should be exempt from FERC jurisdiction under section 7 of the Natural Gas Act (see Dominion LNG Storage for…

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Dem Senators Demand EPA Release $20B “Gold Bars” for Cronies

The Democrat Party keeps digging their hole deeper and deeper. How defending corruption and graft and political payoffs will help their cause is a mystery for us. Our diagnosis is the party has had a collective psychotic break with reality. Two months ago, a video circulated on social media featuring a Biden EPA political appointee…

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House & Senate Vote to Overturn Biden IRA Methane Tax, Trump to Sign

After the shocking news in 2022 that then-U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (from West Virginia) had sold out his state and the entire country by agreeing to support the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bill, the details began to come out about just how bad the bill (now law) really is for the oil and gas…

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PA DEP Still Spends 5X More to Plug Orphaned Wells Than Other States

We explored an important issue last September—the ballooning cost of plugging orphaned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania (see PA DEP Spending WAY Too Much to Plug Abandoned/Orphaned Wells). As a reminder, abandoned wells are those with no production for at least 12 months in a row. Orphaned wells were abandoned before 1985, and the…

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PA Senate Budget Hearing Discusses Firing Some DEP Employees

The Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee held a budget hearing yesterday in Harrisburg. The Department of Environmental Protection’s Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley was on the hot seat. Although many topics were discussed, Senators were most interested in speeding permit reviews, Governor Shapiro’s Lightning Energy Plan, and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax Shapiro insists…

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PA Gov. Claims Victory in Un-Pausing $2B in Energy-Related Pymts

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro can rest easy now that he’s got his “fix” of $2.1 billion in federal taxpayer money promised to him by the Bidenistas before they left town. As you may recall, the Trump administration put an immediate pause on some federal funds after Elon Musk’s DOGE kids discovered massive fraud in government…

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Trump Army Corps IDs Dozens of M-U Projects for Emergency Review

On President Trump’s very first day in office, he signed an executive order called “Declaring a National Energy Emergency” (see Trump EO Declares National Energy Emergency – “Drill, Baby, Drill!”). Trump’s EO prioritizes completing energy infrastructure projects, like pipelines. It specifically talks about the Clean Water Act’s Sections 403 and 404, which states like New…

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