Natural GAS 2
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><h3 class="article-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-family: "Playfair Display", serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333; font-size: 1.5rem;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12122019/natural-gas-ban-cities-legal-cambridge-brookline-massachusetts-state-law-berkeley-california" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;">Cities Want to Ban Natural Gas. But Would It Be Legal?</a></h3><div class="meta" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(125, 125, 125); font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 0.625rem; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1rem;"><p class="byline" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">BY PHIL MCKENNA</p></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><h5 class="article-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.1875rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">Natural Gas Rush Drives a Global Rise in Fossil Fuel Emissions</font></a></h5><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A surge in natural gas has helped drive down coal burning across the United States and Europe, but it isn't displacing other fossil fuels on a global scale. Instead, booming gas use is fueling the global growth in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford University and other institutions.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In fact, natural gas use is growing so fast, its carbon dioxide emissions over the past six years actually eclipsed the decline in emissions from the falling use of coal, the researchers found.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are also failing to cut emissions fast enough, the report says, as much of their growth has provided new energy supplies instead of displacing fossil fuels.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The findings of the study, published Tuesday, support those from other recent studies that found the world is continuing to rely on fossil fuels—including coal—to meet growing energy demand, even as renewable energy sees soaring growth.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Globally, most of the new natural gas being used isn't displacing coal, it's providing new energy. That's the key interaction, and that's true for renewables even," said Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and the report's lead author. "We need renewables that displace fossil fuels, not supplement them."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jackson's paper, published in the scientific journal <em style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab57b3" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Environmental Research Letters</a>,</em> is one of three included in <a href="https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/index.htm" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Global Carbon Project</a>'s annual update on the global carbon budget.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They show that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are expected to grow by 0.6 percent this year. That would be significantly slower than last year, when emissions grew by 2.1 percent. But it would mark the third straight year of growth, after three years of stable emissions. The assessment does not include the methane emissions released by producing and shipping fossil fuels.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Each year of growth makes it harder and more expensive to meet the goals of the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/paris-climate-agreement" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Paris climate agreement</a> of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6°F) from pre-industrial levels.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Supplementing Rather Than Supplanting</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Natural gas presents a particular challenge.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the U.S., coal use has fallen by half over the past 15 years, and the biggest reason for that is the expanded use of natural gas, Jackson said. This year, wind and solar power are responsible for only one-sixth of the drop in coal use. This decline in coal power generation is the main reason U.S. emissions are expected to fall by nearly 2 percent this year, and why they fell by an annual average of nearly 1 percent over the previous six. A similar trend has occurred in Europe, where the decline of coal has, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01102019/uk-coal-addiction-phase-out-natural-gas-renewable-energy-electricity" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">in some cases</a>, been even sharper.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These shifts are also being used by the oil and gas industry and its supporters in government to argue in favor of drilling for more gas, not less. Supporters often refer to natural gas as a "bridge fuel" between higher-emitting fossil fuels and renewable energy, but some industry executives have instead <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15032019/energy-oil-gas-industry-climate-change-ceraweek-shell-bp" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">begun calling it a "forever fuel"</a>—one they see continuing to grow for decades to come.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/22/coal-pennsylvania-beaver-county-natural-gas-shell-plastics" style="text-decoration-line: none;" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">With Coal’s Decline, Pennsylvania Communities Watch the Rise of Natural Gas-fueled Plastics</font></a></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/series/the-new-power-brokers">https://www.propublica.org/series/the-new-power-brokers</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">series: THE NEW POWER BROKERS</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">West Virginia’s Natural Gas Industry</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Coal, long West Virginia’s most dominant industry, is ailing. Natural gas is taking over, as a powerful economic and political force. Is the state making the same mistakes again with a different fossil fuel?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">west va scotus</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/west-virginia-supreme-court-justice-beth-walker-gave-natural-gas-a-big-victory-and-shortchanged-residents">https://www.propublica.org/article/west-virginia-supreme-court-justice-beth-walker-gave-natural-gas-a-big-victory-and-shortchanged-residents</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican-led West Virginia House of Delegates received national attention last week for <a href="https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/cops_and_courts/legislators-pass-impeachment-articles-against-all-supreme-court-justices/article_8548f5d4-1456-55ae-a27e-88fdb9958020.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">impeaching</a> all four of the state’s sitting Supreme Court justices. Lawmakers cited a swirling scandal over court spending that ranged from using state cars for personal business to extravagant office renovations that included a $32,000 couch.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the targets was Beth Walker, who was impeached over allegations of irresponsible spending and poorly managing the court’s administrative affairs.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But left unmentioned in the impeachment and the debate around it has been a peculiar vote by Walker that benefited the natural gas industry. In one of her earliest votes, Walker made a highly unusual decision to reopen a case and then reverse a Supreme Court ruling that would have forced drillers to pay more in profits to residents. Walker voted to reopen the case around the time her husband owned stock in a variety of energy companies, including those participating in West Virginia’s growing gas boom.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The case focused on whether natural gas companies are allowed to deduct a variety of expenses — for the transportation and processing of gas, for example — when they calculate payments for West Virginia residents or companies that lease them drilling rights to their gas. Millions of dollars in gas royalty payments, the riches from the industry’s dramatic growth in West Virginia over the past decade, were at stake.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In November 2016, the court — before Walker joined it — voted in favor of the residents, ruling that producers weren’t allowed to take such deductions.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
The decision has been a source of significant dispute. This year, lawmakers passed a bill to reverse the court’s second decision. That prompted EQT Corp., the state’s second-largest gas producer, to file a lawsuit in federal court challenging the Legislature’s action, as well as a 36-year-old state law that sets minimum royalty payments for new gas wells. The company <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4775301-EQT-Suit-Over-Flat-Rate-Statute.html" style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">said the state law</a> “infringes on EQT’s vested drilling rights” under its leases.Two months later, just weeks into her term, Walker <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4771698-16-0136-Order-Granting-Rehearing.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">provided the pivotal vote</a> to have the court reconsider the ruling. The court then overturned it, siding with the industry and against the residents.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That case is pending in U.S. District Court in Clarksburg and is among the major battles playing out amid the <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/west-virginia-coal-industry-rise-of-natural-gas" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">economic shift in West Virginia</a> from coal to natural gas.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Land ownership across West Virginia has often been complex and confusing. Someone may own the surface land, while someone else owns the the coal, oil or gas underneath it. Tracts such as natural gas reserves become divided among multiple owners, as land and minerals are passed down across generations.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Much of the natural gas in West Virginia is produced under leases that are decades or more than a century old. When they were signed in the early 1900s, paying residents and mineral owners $100 to $300 a year for gas was considered reasonable, maybe even generous. Most drillers at the time were after oil. Gas was mostly an undesirable byproduct.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the market for natural gas increased, it became more common for leases to pay a share of the sales. Residents and others owning the mineral rights would make more money as production increased.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But many West Virginians were stuck with older leases paying a set amount per year, regardless of production. The Legislature decided to step in with a bill in 1982 to increase royalty payments for new wells drilled under older leases. While existing wells were grandfathered in, new wells drilled under those old leases would now have to pay the gas owner at least 12.5 percent of the gas sales price.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was one of these leases, signed in 1906, that governed the deal between Patrick and Katherine Leggett and EQT, and that led to the case involving Walker.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Leggetts were supposed to be getting a 12.5 percent royalty on the gas produced from the new wells on their land. But they were actually getting much less, because EQT was taking deductions from their payments for expenses incurred after the gas was extracted.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Leggetts and their lawyers thought the law was clear: West Virginia courts had already ruled that gas firms couldn’t take deductions unless leases explicitly allowed them. And the 1982 royalty law didn’t mention allowing deductions. (The Leggetts were represented by Charleston lawyer Marvin Masters, who is among a group of local investors who bought the Charleston Gazette-Mail this year.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EQT, though, argued that the Leggett case was different, because the court was interpreting the 1982 statute, rather than simply deciding a dispute over the language of a gas lease.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" tiempos="Tiempos" text="Text" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So EQT and the Leggetts went to court, and the case ended up before the state Supreme Court — at a very unusual time....</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">hmmn blog
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Follow the Russian Natural Gas</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>If you want to understand Carter Page</div><div>Follow the Russian Natural Gas</div><div>WIB POLITICS February 14, 2018</div><div> Brian E. Frydenborg</div><div>
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</div><div><b>To make sense of Carter Page — an American oil consultant and former foreign-policy adviser to Donald Trump — you have to look at his proximity to Ukraine, Russia and some seemingly bizarre natural-gas deals.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Back in the mid-2000s, future Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort set up shop in Ukraine to do some consulting work, bringing his protégé Richard “Rick” Gates to assist. Both have been hit with criminal charges by FBI special counsel Robert Mueller and his team.</div><div>
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</div><div>On one level, the duo ran the politics for disgraced pro-Russia Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych won Ukraine’s presidency in 2010 in large part due to Manafort’s efforts and the scheme detailed below. He was driven out of power in 2014 by Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution.</div><div>
</div><div><b>On another level, Manafort and Gates worked with Putin-linked mobsters and oligarchs in one of the most elaborate and complex money-laundering schemes in history.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This plot involved massive natural gas deals between Russia and Ukraine and their main intermediary RosUkrEnergo. Russian oil giant Gazprom generally sold gas to Ukrainian businessman<b> Dmytro Vasylovych Firtash </b>via RUE at a significantly discounted price. Firtash would mark up the prices when selling the gas onward to Ukraine.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The profits — billions of dollars — were then allegedly laundered by the Russian mafia and used to bribe and control Ukrainian politicians to bend them to Putin’s will and increasingly make Ukraine’s political system subservient to Russian interests.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ukrainian politicians who were not in Putin’s pocket resisted this arrangement, leading to a major dispute over the gas deals in January 2006. Russia ended up shutting off Ukraine’s gas in the dead of winter. A new deal even more favorable to Putin resulted — one that made RUE the exclusive, direct supplier of all Russian and Central Asian gas imports.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Along with Gazprom, RUE sold to a new joint venture between RUE and Ukraine’s Naftogaz called UkrGazEnergo, which in turn marketed oil and gas to Ukraine’s industrial customers. RUE itself sold to Naftogaz for onward sale to Ukraine’s residential and municipal customers.</div><div>
</div><div>This only dramatically increased the corrupt markup opportunities involving Ukraine’s gas, further cheating and angering Ukrainians.</div><div>
</div><div>Another part of the deal involved the major Russian state-owned power company RAO UES, which paid for and imported Ukrainian electricity to sell in Russia. Ukraine generated this power from the gas UkrGazEnergo acquired to sell within Ukraine.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Obviously, this scheme gave Firtash additional points with which he could mark up prices and generate a profit. It’s telling that gas already being transported by Russia’s Gazprom pipelines into Ukraine through RUE — itself half-owned by Gazprom — was being used to generate electricity in Russia.</span></div><div>
</div><div>This confusing arrangement makes no logistical or logical sense, as it would have been easier for Russia to just ship gas from Gazprom to RAO through Russia. But for allegedly generating illicit funds in order to dominate Ukrainian politics, it all makes perfect sense.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Enter Page. </b>He moved to Moscow in 2004 to set up Merrill Lynch’s office there and remained until 2007. During this period — in which the complex gas deals were scouted, negotiated and put into effect — Page claims to have advised both Gazprom and RAO on major deals.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Despite his warped, very pro-Russian worldview, Page clearly possesses deep knowledge of the energy sector and regional geopolitics. The apparently informal meet-and-greet, wine-and-dine roles he often played offered him perfect opportunities to soak up gossip from drunken gas executives celebrating their blatant corruption.</div><div>
</div><div>Page was only too eager to trade in information. Even if he was hardly a major player, it’s hard to accept that he wasn’t aware of the Eurasian gas scheme. He advised not one but two major entities on opposite ends of the corrupt process. Thus it’s extremely likely he had some inkling of the improper nature of the RAO-Gazprom dealings and how they helped to undermine U.S. interests in the region by pushing Ukraine away from the United States.</div><div>
</div><div>For those arguing against Page’s importance, don’t forget that George Papadapolous also held a junior position with the Trump campaign, but still played a key role in linking the campaign to Russia and prompting the FBI’s ongoing Trump-Russia probe. Papadapolous has already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and has become a cooperating person of interest in Mueller’s probe.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After his stint in Russia, Page in 2008 founded — along with Sergey Yatsenko, Gazprom’s ex-deputy head of finance — investment firm Global Energy Capital LLC. Yatsenko was among a number of Russians and Russian officials with whom Page met during and after the time he was attached to Trump’s campaign. By 2013, Page was calling himself “an informal advisor to the staff of the Kremlin.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Page’s pro-Kremlin views even convinced a three-man Russian spy ring to try to recruit him in 2013. That ring that was<b> busted by none other than U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, who was later fired by Trump. </b>The one member of the ring not protected by diplomatic immunity went to prison, while the man with whom Page interacted, Victor Podobnyy, avoided prosecution thanks to his diplomatic cover.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Page was under FBI surveillance in 2014. A second round of surveillance began in October 2016. The Trump campaign hired Page in 2016. Page is mentioned in the paid opposition-research effort that culminated in the dossier compiled by ex-intelligence official Christopher <b>Steele.</b></div><div>
</div><div>The dossier and the surveillance of Page have become the subject of blatant distortion by Trump’s allies, who accuse the FBI and Department of Justice of conspiring against the former reality T.V. star. But there’s no conspiracy. Page has ties to Russia.</div><div><div style="line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/russian-mob-made-its-move-trump-2002-when-he-was-hole-after-series-bankruptcies-documentary"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/russian-mob-made-its-move-trump-2002-when-he-was-hole-after-series-bankruptcies-documentary</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">documentary filmmaker appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday to talk about what he’s found while researching “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8135494/" rel="noopener" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Active Measures</a>,” his new movie about Russian connections with President Donald Trump.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Specifically, filmmaker Jack Bryan told the program that Trump didn’t really start getting involved with members of the <b>Russian mob until around 2002, when he claims they started “entering the Trump Organization.”</b></font></p><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bryan then claimed that Trump had to resort to taking Russian money after a “series of bankruptcies” at Trump properties throughout the 1990s that made it harder for him to raise capital from large American banks. The Russian mob saw this, Bryan said, and “made their move.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When MSNBC’s Willie Geist asked Bryan to clarify what he meant by the mob “making its move” on Trump, the filmmaker elaborated about all the shady money that started pouring into Trump properties after Trump had been cut off by major banks.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Starting in 2002, whereas before you’re seeing incidents of</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> money laundering… you’re seeing particularly in buildings like the Trump Soho, the Toronto tower, the Panama tower to an extent, as well, and several others in development where the there is… what certainly appears to be Russian or post-Soviet mafia money going into it,” he explained.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bryan went on to say that the money was coming “particularly from the Ukraine-Russia gas trade, which is an incredibly mobbed up operation” and that “it’s been going in there to basically start the building process.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch the video below.</font></p></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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