Stop the Sabal Trail Pipeline, says the billboard on Bemiss Road in Valdosta,
reports Michael G. Noll.
This billboard was organized by
WACE. Continue reading Stop the Sabal Trail Pipeline –Billboard in Valdosta
All posts by John S. Quarterman
FPL’s hometown newspaper about Sabal Trail pipeline opposition
The Palm Beach Post is located 15 miles from FPL’s headquarters in Juno Beach,
and right at the end of the extra pipeline FPL built from the end of the
Transco -> Sabal -> FSC pipeline the last few miles to the sea,
which would make LNG export even more convenient.
Susan Salisbury wrote yesterday for the Palm Beach Post, FPL’s proposed $3.5 billion natural gas pipeline faces opposition,
Beth Gordon, a former Wellington resident, moved to Williston in rural Levy County five years ago. She and her husband own a 32-acre horse farm there.
“It’s as close to perfect as it gets. Except now I’m being forced to accept an outrageous risk that I want no part of,” said Gordon, an attorney.
And why should Floridians or Georgians or Alabamans have to accept that risk for the profit of FPL or of Houston-based Spectra Energy?
-jsq
The Koch Attack on Solar Energy
Fossil fuel companies are already feeling the sting of the exponential growth of solar power, doubling every couple of years, up 400% since 2010. Some of them are counter-attacking by trying to impose a surtax on solar power.
The Editorial Board of the New York Times wrote 26 April 2014, The Koch Attack on Solar Energy,
At long last, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have found a new tax they can support. Naturally it’s a tax on something the country needs: solar energy panels.
David Horsey, Los Angeles Times, 23 April 2014For the last few months, the Kochs and other big polluters have been spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy, which have been adopted by most states. They particularly dislike state laws that allow homeowners with solar panels to sell power they don’t need back to electric utilities. So they’ve been pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive.
Oklahoma lawmakers recently Continue reading The Koch Attack on Solar Energy
FERC hearing packed by activists
FERC’s rubberstamp machine may yet be held accountable by the citizens, and by other government agencies and courts that are taxpayer-funded, not by the industries they regulate like FERC.
Sane Energy Project posted 4 May 2014, Reportback: The Minisink Hearing, or, FERC Gets a Clue,
A court officer was asked if similar hearings were always as crowded. “Never,” he said.
This is a trend that’s building. Before Spectra, the average number of interveners on any project was about 19. Now, it’s typical for there to be 300-500 interveners, and for thousands of comments to be filed. Lately, activists are getting under FERC’s skin even more, showing up repeatedly at hearings, Commission meetings, and soon, a rally in front of their offices.
Ted Glick, coordinator for Cheseapeake Climate Action Network, one of the main groups fighting the Cove Point LNG export terminal in Maryland, said, Continue reading FERC hearing packed by activists
Who funds FERC?
If you guessed the taxpayers, as I did, nope. On FERC’s own About FERC web page:
The Commission is funded through costs recovered by the fees and annual charges from the industries it regulates.
To make it even richer, the sentence before that reads:
There is no review of FERC decisions by the President or Congress, maintaining FERC’s independence as a regulatory agency, and providing for fair and unbiased decisions.
But FERC’s web page says nothing about FERC’s independence from
the industries it regulates.
Here’s Investopedia’s definition of regulatory capture:
Regulatory capture happens when a regulatory agency, formed to act in the public’s interest, eventually acts in ways that benefit the industry it is supposed to be regulating, rather than the public.
Maybe that’s why Continue reading Who funds FERC?
EPA questions about Sabal Trail in Ocala newspaper
Similar to the coverage in the Moultrie Observer (it even mentions the closed Lowndes County landfill), plus some local observations and some quotes by Beth Gordon.
Bill Thompson wrote for the Ocala StarBanner yesterday, EPA questions gas pipeline planned through North Central Florida,
Continue reading EPA questions about Sabal Trail in Ocala newspaper
Finally, the EPA wants the report to incorporate the project’s compliance with the federal Clean Air Act. That would be a concern for residents near Dunnellon.
The company intends to build a compressor station south of the town, near State Road 200.
Environmental regulators seek to learn how much greenhouse gases and potentially hazardous pollutants will be emitted at such sites.
How long until Excelerate files for LNG export from Massachusetts Bay?
How long until the same company that already got FE authorization for
LNG export from Texas files for the same from its idle LNG facility
offshore from Boston?
The Northeast Gas Association wrote February 2014, The Role of LNG in the Northeast Natural Gas (and Energy) Market,
The Northeast Gateway facility is owned and operated by Excelerate Energy. The facility began commercial operations Continue reading How long until Excelerate files for LNG export from Massachusetts Bay?
FERC and FE oversight committee approved LNG export legislation for non-FTA countries
Should we let Congress authorize blanket LNG export to 159 WTO member
countries, including China and Ukraine,
so fossil fuel companies can profit by taking our lands
to pipe fracked methane to Florida?
If not, it’s time to call your House member.
After approval by its Subcommittee on Energy and Power, which is the oversight committee for both FERC and the U.S. DoE’s Office of Fossil Fuels, both of which can authorize LNG export, the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee voted yesterday to send to the full House of Representatives H.R. 6, “A BILL To provide for expedited approval of exportation of natural gas to World Trade Organization countries, and for other purposes.” That bill would add to Section 3(c) of the Natural Gas Act ( 15 U.S.C. 717b(c) ), Continue reading FERC and FE oversight committee approved LNG export legislation for non-FTA countries
Bluegrass fracked methane pipeline cancelled
Williams Co.’s excuse: “an insufficient level of firm customer commitment”
for its Marcellus shale to Gulf of Mexico gas pipe.
That’s corporate-ese for it got to be too expensive; it’s the same thing
a company that wanted to put a biomass plant in Lowndes County said.
Couldn’t have had anything to do with massive public resistance, oh no.
This is the same Williams Co. that owns Transco, first in the chain
of the Transco -> Sabal Trail -> Florida Southeast Connection
pipeline through Alabama and Georgia to Florida’s Atlantic
and Gulf coasts, where there are already several companies
authorized for LNG export.
That one could get too expensive, too.
Tim Rudell wrote for WKSU 29 April 2014, Bluegrass pipeline project through Ohio and beyond is cancelled, Continue reading Bluegrass fracked methane pipeline cancelled
Sierra Club petition against TPP
Sierra Club has
a petition to stop Congressional fast-track for the
Trans-Pacific Parternership (TPP),
and that will probably stop the TPP, because in regular Congressional
hearings the parts that have been kept secret would get exposed,
which would make TPP very hard to approve.
Look at what Wikileaks found in
the TPP environment chapter,
and in
the intellectual property chapter.
The U.S. is apparently lobbying for criminal offenses for even unintentional
infringements of “copyright, related rights and trademarks”
Yet there are no criminal sanctions for destroying our environment,
and the draft TPP text even points out:
On the other hand, WTO rules do allow members to derogate from their obligations in some cases, for instance where a measure is aimed at the conservation of natural resources, provided certain conditions are met.
Do we want corporate profit to override our clean water and air and native plants and animals, not to mention our property rights?
Here’s the Sierra Club petition: The Trans-Pacific Partnership could leave a big fracking mess!
The TPP is being pushed by Continue reading Sierra Club petition against TPP