National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) and its pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline have worked on a plan to build the Northern Access Pipeline since 2016. Northern Access is a 97-mile project from McKean County in Pennsylvania into and through Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Erie counties in New York that will flow Marcellus gas into New York State….
In May, after years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) provided closure on what is and what is not considered “waters of the United States”–or WOTUS (see U.S. Supreme Court Permanently Restricts EPA WOTUS Rule). SCOTUS ruled unanimously on WOTUS. The court came down on the side of rationality and common sense. However, we’re…
In the future, when everyone’s favorite groundhog Punxsutawney Phil pokes his head out of his hole in February to tell us whether or not there are another six weeks of winter, he may be looking at shale wastewater trucks coming and going on their way to a new underground injection well just outside of town….
Far-left environmentalist wackos have learned how to abuse the legal system in the U.S. in their attempts to block fossil energy. One of the places they excel in abusing the system is in Pennsylvania. When the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issues a new permit for a project the left opposes, they appeal the…
The great state of Pennsylvania has an Independent Fiscal Office (IFO), created by Act 120 of 2010 and Act 100 of 2016. The IFO analyzes fiscal proposals made by state agencies and is nonpartisan with its analyses. PA State Senator Gene Yaw, from Lycoming County, introduced a bill earlier this week to create an Independent…
Early last week, we published a post about the possibility that Equitrans would revive its moribund project to build the 75-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) Southgate project from the current MVP terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC (see MVP Completion in 2023 Gives New Hope for MVP Southgate in NC). We told
An article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tackles the issues of permit reform, environmental justice, and the intersection of the two. The article asks and attempts to answer the question, “How does one shape the other?” Based on quotes and comments in the story coming from the Shapiro administration, particularly from Acting Secretary of the Dept.
Even as the Bidenistas at the Dept. of Energy are deciding which regional hydrogen hub proposals to fund, and even though Pennsylvania, with its parochial application that competes against a much better application from West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, the Democrats in the PA House are attempting to force any new hydrogen projects in the
The Bidenistas have put their anti-freedom, pro-tyranny agenda into overdrive. On Tuesday, the administration released its semi-annual Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, a report on the actions administrative agencies (part of the Executive Branch of government) plan to issue in the near- and long-term. Both the Interior and Energy departments are moving full
At the end of May, MDN told you about water withdrawal restrictions from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) affecting 42 Pennsylvania oil and gas operators due to ongoing drought conditions (see SRBC Water Withdrawal Restrictions Hit 42 PA Oil & Gas Operators). Earlier this week, the SRBC notified all water users in the basin
Business leaders in Pennsylvania are keeping the pressure on Gov. Josh “do nothing” Shapiro–hoping to get him to keep an implied promise to remove the state from the odious carbon tax scheme called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). During the gubernatorial campaign, Shapiro expressed doubts about RGGI, implying he would not support PA’s participation,
We’re laughing our considerably fat rear-ends off at the Democrat leftists in Pennsylvania who continue to spit and sputter over a proposed name change for the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). PA State Sen. Gene Yaw recently floated a bill (that has since passed a first committee vote) to change the name of the
On June 8, the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection issued a renewed Section 401 water quality certification for the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. In a court filing by MVP that shoves the news in the faces of the corrupt Democrat three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit,
Two weeks ago, shale drillers could, for the first time, begin to apply for permits to drill under (not on top of) Ohio state lands and state parks under newly formulated rules established by the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management (OGLM) Commission (see Ohio State Lands Now Open for O&G Leasing – Virtual Ribbon-Cutting).
Last year after the shocking news that 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 this law really is for the oil and gas industry. First