By We Are Cove Point. June 24, 2017 was a turning point for We Are Cove Point. After years of meeting with legislators and state officials to ask for a safety study (known as a Quantitative Risk Assessment or QRA) on Virginia-based Dominion Energy’s fracking refinery, power plant and gas export terminal being built in Cove Point, we learned that the Governor “supports the project and will not order a safety study.” We believe it is possible for the Governor to support the project and have concerns about the health and safety of the thousands of families living close to Dominion’s facility. We can’t accept “no” as an answer because this is the first facility of its kind anywhere in the world to be placed in such a densely-populated area.
By Eleanor Goldfield for Act Out! The G20 has historically been a meeting of bankers and finance ministers. Indeed, it wasn’t until 2008 that the first summit was held in Washington, DC as the global financial crisis pressed world leaders to at least make it look like they cared about the fate of millions. Today, the G20 is basically a vapid soiree where the G7 and BRICS nations shake hands, smile for the camera, take in a concert and essentially change nothing but time zones. Camp White Pine is a forest defense camp currently engaging in a large scale tree-sit in central Pennsylvania in order to combat the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. This 350+ mile long proposed pipeline would carry natural gas liquids through Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania to an export facility on the east coast.
By Kevin McGill for Associated Press. NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Louisiana flood protection board has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive its lawsuit seeking to make oil, gas and pipeline companies pay for decades of damage to coastal wetlands, hoping to reverse losses in the lower federal courts. The suit drew fierce opposition from the energy industry and many in state government when it was filed in 2013 by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East. It said the energy industry’s dredging of canals in coastal drilling areas contributed to loss of wetlands that form a hurricane buffer for New Orleans. Some 80 companies are named as defendants, among them Chevron, Exxon Mobil Corp., and subsidiaries of BP.
By Mark Scialla for PBS. Last spring, Elise Gerhart and her mother Ellen heard chainsaw motors revving in the woods behind their southern Pennsylvania home. Pipeline workers had returned to finish clear-cutting a patch of the Gerhart’s 27-acre forest. The two women, joined by other activists, raced into the woods, and Elise climbed 40-feet high into a 100-year-old white pine. Cutting that tree would have brought her down with it. The workers were forced to stop. A year later, only three of the hundreds of trees remain in a three-acre clearing of stumps and logs. Forts suspended from the branches of these trees block new work in the woods. It was last year that the Gerharts first put out a call for help to stop a natural gas liquids project planned to pass under a wetland and forest on their property in Huntingdon County. The Gerhart’s land, now known by activists as Camp White Pine, has since become another front in the handful of pipeline battles occurring across the continent, many of which were inspired by the movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline last year.
By Greg Maybury for Information Clearing House. For those Americans au fait with their country’s fondness for engineering coups, ousting democratically elected leaders, and interfering in the political affairs of other nations – to all intents the perennial bedrock principle of U.S. foreign policy — Iran is a well-documented exemplar. Given the supreme ironies inherent in the political imbroglio in the U.S. attending Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, along with America’s resolve to seek once again regime change in Russia’s ally Iran, it’s timely we revisit this slice of history. Doing so presents us an opportunity to view the so-called ‘Russia-gate’ furore, the Iran regime change ambitions, and the increasingly bloody war in Syria – itself an ally of both Russia and Iran — within a broader, more nuanced historical context. From there we might derive a more informed perspective on the contemporary geopolitical zeitgeist and the hegemonic forces that have fashioned it.
By Melinda Tuhus for Beyond Extreme Energy. Faced with the growing scourge of pipeline expansion nationwide, 180 groups — including Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, Green America, the Center for Biological Diversity, and community-level organizations — are calling for the full Senate to vote “no” on President Trump’s nominees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The coalition of organizations is opposing the nominations of Neil Chatterjee and Robert Powelson because both nominees would increase FERC’s bias towards the fossil fuel industry and further marginalize communities that oppose pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure that damage people’s homes, livelihoods and communities. Natural gas pipelines and infrastructure represent a clear danger to communities nationwide, and in just the past two years, explosions at transmission pipelines have caused 12 deaths and 10 injuries, as well as extensive property damage. In addition, the construction process puts communities at risk. Recently, the Rover pipeline, under construction and approved by FERC, resulted in two million gallons of drilling fluids leaking into Ohio wetlands.
By Popular Resistance. Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland let it be known last week that he supports the Dominion Energy fracked gas export terminal in southern Maryland and will not order a safety study to determine the risks to the community. The people of Lusby, Maryland and other communities near Cove Point along with their allies have entered a new phase of their campaign now that Hogan has essentially said — your lives are less important than Dominion’s profits. The failure to examine the risks of the Dominion fracked gas export terminal in a Qualitative Risk Assessment is the height of irresponsibility and shows that people of Maryland, especially those in rural areas, they cannot count on Governor Hogan to treat them fairly or protect their safety. Take action to urge Governor Hogan to order a risk assessment. Call his office at 410-974-3901 and join us at the rally in Lawyer’s Mall in Annapolis, this Monday, June 3, 2017 at noon.
By No Potomac Pipeline. From Standing Rock to Hancock people are rising up to resist fracked gas pipelines in their community. Following a historic fight in Maryland, where we became the first state with gas reserves to legislatively ban fracking, we still find our communities our under attack by Big Oil and Gas. TransCanada the same company behind the Keystone Pipeline that spilled over 16000 gallons of crude oil on South Dakota land now wants to build a pipeline that would transport fracked gas between Pennsylvania and West Virginia. How are they going to do this? They are going to do it through the shortest and cheapest route by cutting through Maryland and underneath the Potomac River that serves as the source of drinking water for millions of residents in our state and the DC suburbs.
From LEau Est La Vie Camp Facebook Page. The L’eau Est La Vie (Water Is Life) Camp was launched on June 24, 2017 in the swamps of Southern Louisiana along the route of Energy Transfer Partners’ (ETP) proposed Bayou Bridge Pipeline. This camp isa hub for the resistance to the Bayou Bridge Pipeline. The camp is by Indigenous leaders, environmental justice communities, and many allies, the L’eau Est La Vie Camp will serve as a hub of resistance to Bayou Bridge — the final southern leg of the Dakota Access Pipeline system. This video was released on the eve of the opening of the L’eau Est La Vie Camp in South Louisiana to provide some background on what the Bayou Bridge Pipeline is, it’s connection to the Dakota Access Pipeline, who the pipeline will impact, and why this pipeline needs to be stopped.
By Phil Mckenna for Inside Climate News – The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General will investigate how the agency estimates methane emissions from the oil and gas sector after an environmental group alleged that its emission estimates and regulations are based, in part, on faulty studies. The evaluation, announced Wednesday, will focus on a pair of studies conducted jointly by the University of Texas–Austin and the Environmental Defense Fund in 2013-2014 that found methane emissions to be lower than EPA estimates. The studies, which were done in cooperation with a number of oil and gas companies, were subsequently challenged for allegedly using faulty equipment and underestimating emissions. “This evaluation’s objectives are examining the results of and concerns/problems with the 2013 and 2014 emission studies conducted by the Environmental Defense Fund and the University of Texas-Austin,” EPA OIG spokesperson Jennifer Kaplan said in an email. The oil and gas sector is the leading source of human-derived methane emissions in the U.S., emitting more than either the agricultural sector or landfills, according to EPA estimates. Regulation of the powerful greenhouse gas has been in dispute since the Trump administration arrived and began rolling back President Barack Obama’s efforts to rein in emissions.
By Margaret Flowers for We Are Cove Point. Lusby, Maryland – For the past year, residents of Cove Point and their allies have petitioned Governor Larry Hogan with a very reasonable request: order a safety study (officially known as a Quantitative Risk Assessment or QRA) for the gas refinery, power plant and export terminal that Dominion Energy, a Virginia-based corporation, is building in Cove Point. Thousands of petitions have been delivered to the Governor. A letter signed by 84 organizations was delivered. Residents spoke personally with the Governor at parades and other events and met with his staff to present the concerns. On June 20, due to the lack of response from the Governor’s office, a small delegation traveled to Annapolis yet again to request the safety study.
By The Sugar Shack Alliance. Massachusetts – On June 20, eighteen members of the Sugar Shack Alliance who were arrested for civil disobedience at Otis State Forest in Sandisfield, MA, will be having their day in court. At the activists first arraignment for the criminal charges brought against them for blocking tree cutting in Otis State Forest, the state put in a motion to have the criminal charges of disorderly conduct and trespass converted into civil charges. Charges stemmed from protesters blocking the gas pipeline workers’ access to a pipeline work site. The hearing on that motion will take place in front of Judge Vrabel on June 20 at 9:00 a.m. at the Southern Berkshire District Court in Great Barrington. Those being tried at the hearing were arrested protesting a the $93 Kinder Morgan Connecticut Expansion Project, a pipeline extension planned for the Massachusetts state forest to store fracked gas that will be used in CT.
Alleen Brown, Will Parrish and Alice Speri for The Intercept. A shadowy international mercenary and security firm known as TigerSwan targeted the movement opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline with military-style counterterrorism measures, collaborating closely with police in at least five states, according to internal documents obtained by The Intercept. The documents provide the first detailed picture of how TigerSwan, which originated as a U.S. military and State Department contractor helping to execute the global war on terror, worked at the behest of its client Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline, to respond to the indigenous-led movement that sought to stop the project.
By Jimmy Betts for Beyond Extreme Energy. WASHINGTON, DC – Once accustomed to operating in the shadows, controversy around the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and its role in the permitting of harmful and unnecessary fracked gas infrastructure was thrown into the limelight on Thursday morning when five people disrupted the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominations to the Commission, causing delay while speakers tried to proceed. After the hearing was called to order, and introductions occurred, protesters methodically, yet unpredictably, loudly exclaimed “FERC hurts families, Shut FERC down!” and “FERC hurts families, FERC hurt towns” and “The future is watching”. One protester said “I am compelled to interrupt this because I have seen the damage of climate change”. The protesters were ejected, four arrested and one detained.
By Donny Williams for We Are Cove Point. “I don’t know a lot about the existing permit.” Those words shocked the crowd gathered last night for Maryland Department of the Environment’s “informational meeting” regarding Dominion’s permit to dump an average of 45,000 gallons every day into the wetlands around Cove Point. Spoken by Marjorie Mewbourn, MDE’s project manager overseeing this permit application, this sentence summed up a lot about the amount of information our state regulators had or were able to share. MDE seemed nervous as it tried to give a presentation about this permit to a crowd of about 60, which overflowed the “Dominion Cove Point LNG” meeting room where it was held in the Prince Frederick library and had people sitting on tables or wherever they could find space. However, residents didn’t let MDE get very far.
|
|
