• Water

NY Denies Water Permit to Build Pipeline for Gas, Wants to Build Transmission Line Instead

• #CleanWaterAct
• conservation
• environment
• fracking
• gas
• pipeline
• power
• Solar
• water
• wind

New York state environmental regulators denied for a third time a permit for a pipeline that would transport fracked natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York City and Long Island for two reasons: water quality in the Long Island Sound and fidelity to the state’s new law that requires the New York to transition its power sector to net-zero emissions by 2040 and reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. 

Why This Matters:  This is how the stimulus funding from the federal government should work — it must be used to build cleaner and more efficient new infrastructure that decreases our dependence on fossil fuels.

• Land

New Investigation Shows Pipelines Always Get Their Way With FERC

• #conservationist
• 5th Amendment rights
• Atlantic Coast Pipeline
• FERC
• oil and gas
• pipeline
• Private Property Rights
• Takings

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) sides with pipeline companies over private landowners in 99% of the cases when landowners refuse to grant a company permission to bury a pipeline on their land.  

Why This Matters:  The FERC’s stilted process may soon end. In addition to Congressional oversight, a federal appeals court is considering whether to disallow FERC from blocking landowners taking their cases to court right away, before ground is broken.

• Energy

Three States Outlaw Pipeline Protests, As Pipeline Operators Request Production Slow Down

• oil
• oil glut
• pipeline
• price war
• protest
• spill

Bloomberg News reported last week that U.S. pipeline operators are requesting oil producers to cut back on production — a “clear sign” that the oil market is reaching a breaking point when the amount of crude oil is at capacity in storage tanks and pipelines due to the oil glut caused by the global price war. Meanwhile, the Governors of Kentucky, West Virginia and South Dakota recently signed laws effectively making it a crime to protest a pipeline — imposing stiff fines and penalties for anyone causing “damage, destruction, vandalization, defacing or tampering” to pipelines because they are deemed to be “critical infrastructure.”

• Climate Change

Bloomberg’s Position on Natural Gas Gets Greater Scrutiny

• exports
• fracking
• Michael Bloomberg
• natural gas
• pipeline

Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg’s position on natural gas took center stage yesterday with the President tweeting to “Texas & Oklahoma” — two Super Tuesday states — that people should not vote for “Mini Mike” because he will kill “your drilling, fracking, and pipelines.”  However, according to The Washington Post, Bloomberg’s position on natural gas is more complicated.

Why This Matters:  Bloomberg has funded a highly successful campaign to shutter dirty coal plants in the U.S., but overall his position on fossil fuels is the most conservative of the remaining top tier Presidential candidates.

• Climate Change

New Study Shows Natural Gas Power Plants Are A “Bridge” That Goes Too Far

• climate change
• fracking
• greenhouse gas emissions
• natural gas
• pipeline

A new study by the Rocky Mountain Institute published yesterday makes the case that the U.S. may be making too big an investment in natural gas power infrastructure — power plants and pipelines — the life of those plants go out past 2050 and are more than just a “bridge” to renewable power.  Not only […]

• Energy

Deadly Gas Pipeline Explosion Rocks Kentucky

• Enbridge
• explosion
• natural gas
• oil spill
• pipeline

A large regional pipeline owned by Enbridge that carries natural gas from the Mexican border in Texas to New York City exploded in rural Kentucky early Thursday morning, killing one and injuring five others in what one resident described as a tornado of fire.  CBS News reported that the explosion destroyed railroad tracks and several trailer homes causing tremendous damage in its vicinity — it was so big it could be seen by weather radar — and it took several hours to bring under control by local fire officials. 

• Politics

De Blasio Getting Tough on Pollution – Is He Running Too?

• fracking
• GND
• Mayor De Blasio
• New York City
• pipeline
• pollution
• Trump Tower

Mayor Bill De Blasio of New York City, who is allegedly mulling whether to throw his hat into the Presidential race, used Trump Tower as a backdrop for an event on Monday highlighting a tough new law that reduces emissions from buildings, which has been dubbed the NYC’s GND. 

• Energy

Pipeline Court Challenges Continue

• Appalachian Trail
• fracking
• Green River
• pipeline
• shale
• Supreme Court

On Tuesday, five environmental groups announced their intention to sue the Trump Administration over its decision to allow the Enefit project to go forward and begin constructing three pipelines and two transmission lines across federal land in Utah — these will transport processed oil from a large shale facility to various utilities.  The Hill reported […]

• Politics

Pipeline and LNG Terminal Project Puts Oregon Governor On the Spot

• climate change
• Colorado
• FERC
• fracking
• Governor Kate Brown
• LNG
• Oregon
• pipeline
• President Trump
• wetlands

In Oregon, there is a fossil fuel infrastructure project undergoing permitting and approval that is stirring up controversy, putting the newly re-elected Governor of the state, Kate Brown, on the spot over her campaign promise to tackle the issue of climate change.  The Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal and its Pacific Connector Gas pipeline would transport fracked natural gas from Colorado all the way to Oregon’s coast, where it would be super-cooled into liquid form and loaded on ships in the terminal bound for international markets.  A huge crowd of protesters attended a state hearing on the project expressed grave concerns about the large quantities of soil that would need to be displaced in order to install the proposed three-foot wide pipeline, spanning 229 miles, 78 wetlands, and 485 waterways across the state through four Oregon Counties.