Above: People stand outside of FERC after being excluded from public meeting on May 14, 2015. Source: BXE
FERC Excludes People From Attending Public Meeting; Many Traveled From FERC Impacted Communities
Five Detained, Three of Those Arrested
Update: Friday evening – All arrestees are now out of jail. One was freed last night and the other two were released this afternoon after their arraignment. The arrestees were charged with unlawful entry in the FERC although they had been processed by security and given guest badges when they arrived that morning for the meeting. Instead of listening to the legitimate concerns of communities who are being harmed by FERC-approved projects, FERC security under the direction of Chairman Norman Bay chose to arrest some of those who spoke out.
More: DC Media Group report: Dozens Denied Access to FERC Meeting
Members of Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) and others concerned with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) industry friendly oil and gas policy were excluded from the monthly Commissioners meeting today. FERC tried to divert them into a side room on the incorrect grounds that they had previously disrupted Commissioner meetings. Three were arrested and two more were detained.
Some who had never before attended a meeting at FERC, much less disrupted one, had traveled hundreds of miles to attend this meeting and were corralled, diverted, and ultimately excluded. When the excluded citizens asked why they had not been allowed entry and explained that they had never been to a meeting, FERC security refused to explain and nevertheless excluded them. The Department of Homeland Security then escorted most of them from the meeting. Some who refused to be excluded were cuffed, detained, and examined by DHS officers. Two were released and three remain in custody.
A BXE spokesperson, Donald Weightman, stated: “It is outrageous that FERC arrested detained, and excluded us from attending a public meeting and prevented us from expressing our concerns about its industry-friendly policies. It violated our rights to freedom speech and assembly to nonviolently attend a public meeting. It was especially unfair to exclude those who had traveled hundreds of miles to attend a meeting for the first time when FERC had no grounds to throw them out.”
Patti Cronheim from Hopewell Township, NJ woke up at 4 am and drove from NJ to DC to attend the meeting: “Although I was actually allowed to attend the meeting, when I stood up to express my concerns that others had been excluded, I was approached by several security guards and, feeling threatened, I left. I think that it is a disgrace that a federal agency chose to exclude and arrest those who came to speak. FERC should be ashamed of itself.”
BXE is a network of organizations and individuals that believes the United States and other nations must adopt clear, immediate and binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions and on the extraction and combustion of oil, coal and gas.
FERC Charman Norman Bay told Politico that the protesters were “disrespectful” and his advice to protesters is “To tell them to reconsider what they’re doing. And I would urge them to stop disrupting our meetings.”
Weightman stated, “We will not be silenced and the people from these communities will not be silenced. We will be back.”