Above Photo: A golf cart bearing an anti-pipeline message is parked on the Holleran/Zeffer property in New Milford, Pennsylvania along the edge of the pipeline company’s right-of-way zone. From faithmeckley.wordpress.com.
I traveled to New Milford, Pennsylvania on March 3 to meet a family who was in the process of losing the quiet woodlands on land they have owned for three generations. After refusing to cut a deal for their property with the company building the Constitution Pipeline, the company used eminent domain to forcibly take the land and begin cutting down trees.
The Constitution Pipeline was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an agency responsible for reviewing and approving liquefied natural gas terminals, interstate natural gas pipelines, and hydropower projects. Although the FERC is charged with examining the impacts of projects such as these and determining whether or not they’re safe to build, the agency has not denied a pipeline project since 1986. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network filed a lawsuit against the FERC March 2 on the grounds that the agency’s review process for pipeline projects is structurally biased, according to a press release.
“Because FERC gets its funding from the big companies it is supposed to be monitoring, it has become, perhaps inevitably, a corrupt, rogue agency,” said Maya van Rossum, the leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, in the release. “That’s why FERC has approved 100 percent of pipeline projects — literally every single one of them — that it has considered since 1986.”
Before 2014, very few in the general populace had heard of the FERC, even among avid environmentalists. When regular protesting began at the FERC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., both in the form of blockades and disruptions of monthly commissioner meetings — some of which I myself have participated in — mainstream media coverage was absent. However, between 2014 and now, activist groups like Beyond Extreme Energy, citizen journalists, and independent outlets like DC Media Group and Popular Resistance have slowly but surely brought the FERC to the sphere of public awareness.
Some of the journalists who maintain these outlets, such as Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers at Popular Resistance, have been actively involved in the organizing of protests against the FERC. However, Popular Resistance often structures its articles regarding the protests as reports from the front lines, and it frequently publishes viewpoint pieces from activists and landowners affected by FERC approved projects.
The activist-journalists (“jactivists”) at these outlets are transparent about their bias, and without them, the FERC would not currently be under public scrutiny for its regulatory process.