New Jersey is a Communist state, controlled by Communists from the Governor on down to radical judges packing its courts. Yesterday, three Commie judges from the Superior Court of NJ ruled that the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) should not have issued an exemption to the Highlands Act to Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) to…
When a government agency says it will “study” something, that means you can kiss it goodbye. It’s lights out. Our country has a serious problem: insufficient pipelines to get natural gas where it needs to go. In June 2020, during the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration…
A couple of major changes to alert you to at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC). The PUC is the public utility commission in Pennsylvania. The PUC has five commissioners appointed by the Governor with the consent of the state Senate. The PUC oversees public utility and services operations in the Commonwealth, in sectors including…
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration is once again signaling its intent to block shale drilling in certain regions of the state by using a new “environmental justice” (it’s racist to drill there) policy. We told you about Shapiro’s intent two weeks ago when the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued new so-called environmental justice…
At the regular Murrysville, PA (Westmoreland County) town council meeting on August 16, the council voted to adopt Ordinance No. 1075-23, an ordinance amending the town code to add a provision allowing wastewater injection wells in the town. The new ordinance limits injection wells to properties zoned for business use. The prospective site must be…
Last summer, Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 2644 was passed into law, becoming Act 96 of 2022 (see New PA Act 96 Helps Boost Plugging Orphan Wells – Left Goes Nuts). Part of the new law keeps the power to raise bonding amounts for conventional wells with the legislature rather than allowing PA’s unelected Democrat bureaucrats…
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. Olympus owns a pipeline subsidiary called Hyperion Midstream that builds gathering lines to the company’s wells. Hyperion applied to build a compressor station on a recently approved Olympus well pad in rural West Deer Township (Allegheny County). The…
We’re naming names. Pennsylvania State Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa (Republican from Fayette County) has turned against the Marcellus industry. She is introducing legislation that would ban drilling new wastewater injection wells in the state, making it much harder to drill new shale wells. Companies end up drilling fewer wells without a place to dispose of…
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) is the public utility commission in Pennsylvania. The PUC has five commissioners appointed by the Governor with the consent of the state Senate. The PUC oversees public utility and services operations in the Commonwealth, in sectors including water, energy, telecommunications, and transportation. The decisions made by the PUC impact…
The stench coming from inside the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is growing. Since early this year, Kevin Mooney, an investigative reporter with the PA-based Commonwealth Foundation and D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, has been digging into potential ethics (and legal) violations by FERC commissioners. His work has focused on FERC Commissioner Allison Clements, a former attorney…
Last week, the heaviest of the heavy hitters representing U.S. pipelines, including the American Gas Association (AGA), filed comments opposing the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) new methane rules for all pipelines. The gas associations said extensive changes need to be made to PHMSA’s proposal for it to be technically and economically feasible….
This is so frustrating. Last week Pittsburgh University (Pitt) issued fake research reports that supposedly link proximity to shale wells with a minuscule (less than one-tenth of one percent) rise in one type of childhood cancer (see Pitt Releases Fake Research, Claims PA Fracking Linked to Kid Cancer). The so-called research has been destroyed by…
On August 17, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) posted an Interim Final Environmental Justice Policy to guide DEP’s permit application reviews and outreach efforts in environmental justice areas throughout the Commonwealth. New Environmental Justice (or EJ) policies are a euphemism for regulations that prohibit drilling and pipelines built in neighborhoods of color or…
In 2018, Pennsylvania’s then-Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, assembled a grand jury to “investigate” Marcellus drillers. He lied to them for over two years and eventually got them to indict a number of Marcellus companies on trumped-up charges. The so-called grand jury issued a report (which was actually authored by Shapiro and his minions) in June…
Last September, EQT Corporation announced it was buying privately-owned Tug Hill Operating’s West Virginia shale assets for $5.2 billion (see Confirmed: EQT Buys Tug Hill’s THQ Appalachia for $5.2 Billion). However, the Bidenistas at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) got involved slowing down the deal. Because of the FTC dragging its feet, EQT and Tug…