To: The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate
Congress: End FERC's Rubber Stamping of Natural Gas Pipelines
Karen Feridun
As a constituent who is very concerned about protecting communities nationwide, I am urging you to take action to end the rubber stamping of natural gas pipelines by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Communities nationwide are being decimated by natural gas pipelines, and eminent domain is being abused to seize lands without giving landowners any voice or rights.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has abused its power, our climate, and our communities for too long. I’m asking you to:
1. Enact a moratorium on new fracked gas pipelines and infrastructure until there are hearings into FERC’s abuses in permitting pipelines and reforms put in place that give communities a real voice in FERC’s permitting process;
2. Vote AGAINST the Dirty Energy bill (S1460), and any other legislation that would increase FERC’s authority and perversely speed up the approval process for fracked gas infrastructure. Communities and property owners nationwide need to have a say over all infrastructure projects.
3. Support new legislation (such asH.R. 3671, Rep. Gabbard's 'OFF ACT', or the Senate '100 by 50' act) and a federal permitting process that puts us on a path to 100% clean energy to create high paying jobs, a stable climate, and livable communities.
Thank you for your attention to this important issue and I would appreciate a response.
Why is this important?
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is back in business. The Commission has had the authority to approve natural gas pipelines for the past 30 years and has only rejected one pipeline in all of that time. Earlier this year, the five-member panel was down to one commissioner. Without a quorum, they couldn't approve any pipelines. Trump's first two rabidly pro-fossil fuel nominees were confirmed by the Senate, just minutes before the August recess, re-establishing the quorum.
For more than a year, hundreds of organizations have been calling on Congress to investigate FERC's track record of approving pipelines and several well-documented abuses of its power and bad policies. We'd hoped that Congress would take advantage of the lack of a quorum and use that time for the investigation, but they failed to act. Recent federal court decisions back up some of the issues we've raised. For instance, NY's environmental regulators rejected a pipeline FERC approved. They didn't have sufficient information to issue the required permits, yet FERC had already approved the pipeline and had allowed the company to fell trees for the right-of-way using eminent domain. The court found in favor of the NY regulators and the project was killed.
Now, things have gone from bad to worse. Both the House and Senate have been proposing legislation to support Trump's dirty energy agenda that would actually expand FERC's authority. The House has already passed a couple of bills. The Senate energy bill, S. 1460, has not yet been passed and we'd like to keep it that way. The bills order other regulators to give deference to FERC's decisions, speeds up approvals of Liquefiled Natural Gas export facilities, and more.
Please sign our petition calling on Congress to declare a moratorium on pipeline approvals, reject Trump's dirty energy bills, and support new legislation in the House and Senate that would put us on a path to renewable, sustainable energy solutions.