A little-known regulatory agency has been the site of daily protests this week against the environmental costs and health and safety hazards associated with exporting natural gas. Roughly twenty people have been picketing every day this week outside the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the agency in charge of approving interstate gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals. FERC is accused of being dysfunctional and in dire need of reform, a de facto “rubber stamp” for gas industry plans to expand their fracking operations.
“They are oil and gas industry facilitators, not oil and gas industry regulators,” said Mike Tidwell, director of environmental group Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), at a press conference in front of FERC on Monday.
Protestors chanted, “Hey, FERC, yes you can, stop this dirty fracked gas plan!” and carried signs which said, “The FERC Rubberstamp Hurts Communities” and “Cove Point is All About Fracking!” They came from areas which would be affected by the approval of the conversion of Cove Point LNG into an export terminal. On Tuesday, Calvert County, Maryland residents picketed and expressed fears about their safety living in close proximity to the energy intensive and volatile process of supercooling methane gas. On Wednesday, people from Frederick County registered their anger with FERC over approving a highly polluting compressor station in Myersville which would help transport gas to Cove Point.
According to CCAN, organizer of the weeklong protest, FERC reviews projects without adequately assessing their environmental, health and safety risks, nor their cumulative impacts on the climate.