At the Superior Court of the District of Columbia yesterday, #Sidewalk7 members Claude Guillemard of Baltimore, MD, Ellen Taylor of Washington, D.C., and Donald Weightman of Philadelphia, PA, said that they would go to trial, set for Dec. 8, for their May 9 blockade at the FERC.

Peter Nightingale, of Kingston, RI, was arraigned only yesterday because he was out of the country during the first court date. He says he intends to go to trial. BXE and other groups have long criticized the agency for rubber-stamping fracked-gas pipelines, compressor stations and export facilities that it reviews.

“We have been charged with unlawful entry,” Weightman said, “but the real crime is the unlawful entry of methane and carbon dioxide into our air, the unlawful entry of toxic waste into our water, and the unlawful entry of global warming into the future of our world. The real weapon is fracked gas; FERC is the real defendant; we will charge FERC with the commission of a crime.”

The other three #Sidewalk7 activists – Melinda Tuhus of Connecticut, Clarke Herbert of Virginia and Linda Reik of New York – agreed to perform 32 hours of community service and to stay away from the 800 block of 1st Avenue NE, the area of the FERC offices, for four months.

The court actions yesterday were part of the ongoing resistance to fracked-gas infrastructure, including demanding a halt to expansion of Spectra’s AIM Project pipeline. #StopSpectra activists have declared a “state of emergency” in advance of a noon press conference Thursday outside the Manhattan offices of Sens. Charles Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. The senators wrote a letter to FERC on Aug. 3 calling for construction to stop. In February, Gov. Andrew Cuomo also asked FERC to postpone the pipeline expansion.

After the court hearing, New York, BXE, and Fossil Free Rhode Island activists hand-delivered invitations to the press conference to the senators’ Washington offices.

The pipeline “would bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New England, despite a report from the Massachusetts Attorney General that shows no need for this gas,” the letter said. “In NY, if completed, the AIM Pipeline would carry gas through residential communities and within 105 feet of critical Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant safety facilities.

Just last April, Spectra Energy’s Texas Eastern line erupted into a giant explosion due to pipeline corrosion, and New Yorkers fear what an explosion of this magnitude could mean in such close proximity to Indian Point. Over the last several years, communities along the pipeline route have risen up against the pipeline, and are counting on New York senators to help stop this dangerous project.”

Activists delivered a letter from Fossil Free Rhode Island to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s office.  The senator is generally considered to be a climate champion, but he supports fracked gas as a bridge fuel. The letter asks the senator to change his position so that it is consistent with science and with the nation’s obligations under international treaties, the Rio Declaration in particular.  The letter ends stating: “As a small step in that direction, maybe you could start by following Bill McKibben’s suggestion, ‘correcting the outmoded way the EPA calculates the warming effect of methane.’”

In June, DeSmog Blog reported  that a FERC employee who was the agency’s project manager for reviewing the then-proposed AIM pipeline had been hired by an engineering company that is one of Spectra’s main contractors. DeSmog Blog reported in May and July that a contractor hired by FERC to conduct an environmental review of a Spectra project was already working on related Spectra pipeline projects. U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey have written to FERC Chairman Norman Bay asking about the “potential conflicts of interest.”

A campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience is also ongoing in West Roxbury, MA, where 165 people have been arrested so far blocking construction of the West Roxbury Lateral pipeline.   Resist the Pipeline is coordinating those actions. In addition, the City Council, mayor, the state representative, state senator and U.S. Congressman Stephen Lynch oppose the project.

Boston City Council President Michelle Wu said, “Climate change impacts us all and especially future generations. We need immediate, bold action to transition rapidly away from reliance on fossil fuels to renewable energy. Building new natural gas infrastructure, such as Spectra Energy’s West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline, is wrong for our communities and wrong for future generations. I applaud the thoughtful, purposeful, nonviolent civil disobedience West Roxbury residents and friends are practicing to accomplish what needs to get done.”

In addition, Massachusetts’ highest court ruled today that the state can’t force residential ratepayers to subsidize the construction of pipelines. “This is an incredibly important and timely decision,” said David Ismay, lead attorney on the case for Conservation Law Foundation. “Today our highest court affirmed Massachusetts’ commitment to an open energy future by rejecting the Baker Administration’s attempt to subsidize the dying fossil fuel industry. The course of our economy and our energy markets runs counter to the will of multi-billion dollar pipeline companies, and, thanks to today’s decision, the government will no longer be able to unfairly and unlawfully tip the scales.”
[Based on a BXE press release.]

The arrests happened on the first day of the Rubber Stamp Rebellion, a week of action protesting FERC’s endless stream of approvals of the fracked-gas projects that plague the nation. FERC’s projects, accepted with nary a whimper of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation,  have gained special notoriety in Rhode Island with Inverenergy’s planned gigawatt power plant in Burrillville and National Grid’s proposed gas liquefaction facility in Fields Point, Providence.

Explaining why he had participated in the blockade, Peter Nightingale, a member of Fossil Free Rhode Island and a URI physics professor, stated that he helped block one of the driveways leading to a FERC parking garage as an act of civil resistance and a symbolic attempt to stop what he calls a crime in progress:

 Our government no longer serves “the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community.”  [See article 10 of the New Hampshire Constitution, the Right of Revolution.]  As trustee of the environment, government is delinquent in its fiduciary duty to preserve a habitable climate for present and future generations.  The pretense that the Paris Agreement of 2015 can be implemented by expanding the fracked-gas infrastructure here and abroad is an act of ecocidal recklessness.”

An employee of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia wrote: “I cannot find Peter Nightingale, Claude Guillemard, Don Weightman, or Clarke Herbert in the system.”   This sound like perfect case of gender bias, except that Claude Guillemard happens to be a woman.  She once was lost but now she’s been found.

Attorney Mark Goldstone, a First Amendment lawyer who regularly defends political protestors—includingDouglas Hughes, the postal worker who landed a gyrocopter on a White House lawn—explained  that if a case is “not papered,” the government has decided not to go forward with the charge. This does not guarantee that they could not paper it later, but, as Goldstone added, he has never seen this happen in his 30 years of experience.

The same day,  commissioners of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) closed their regularly scheduled May 19 meeting to the public due to “security concerns,” with just 16 hours’ notice. They then held their meeting with members of the press and “invited guests,” some of whom were representatives of the fossil fuel industry FERC is supposed to regulate.

On Thursday, day four and the last day of the beginning of its Rubber Stamp Rebellion, Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) held a previously scheduled rally​ from 8-10 a.m., calling on FERC to issue no new permits and to transition to an agency promoting non-polluting, renewable energy and efficiency.

After the rally, three members of BXE tried to get into the building that houses FERC, but were turned away by security guards. They were told that only government employees and invited guests could get into the meeting.

“It’s our understanding,” said BXE member Melinda Tuhus, “that the invited guests from industry were allowed into the meeting and only the public was kept out; that we could’ve pre-registered for the meeting, but of course to do that one would’ve had to know that the meeting was going to be closed, which wasn’t announced until the night before.”

From the FERC webcast, for example, the CEO of So Cal Gas, the director of So Cal Edison and others made a presentation about “preparations for LA basin gas-electric reliability and market impacts.”

BXE held a meeting in front of FERC that was open to the public, where activists spoke about the harms they have suffered from fracked gas infrastructure approved by FERC and climate leaders added their support to BXE’s efforts to stop FERC from issuing new permits.

The Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the HipHop Caucus criticized President Obama, California Gov. Jerry Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for claiming to be climate heroes while backing fracking and fracked gas.

“They are not climate leaders,” he said, “until they realize we must transition to 100% renewable energy.” After listing several fossil fuel projects that have been defeated through public opposition, Yearwood pointed toward the FERC offices and said, “The folks inside are losing. We are winning — for the next generation.”

Mary Wildfire drove from West Virginia hoping to speak out at the FERC meeting. She told the crowd outside that coal, oil and gas all have climate change in common. “The impacts are already severe. The issue is how are we going to prevent catastrophic climate change.” FERC is “permitting well into the twenty-teens because we don’t want to bother changing our habits.”

Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Nebraska, which played a critical role in defeating the Keystone XL pipeline, said she is now working with people in other states to fight fossil fuel projects​. She said that she and others recently planted sacred corn seeds along the paths of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Mountain Valley Pipeline ​through several mid-Atlantic states.

“The seeds of resistance are growing everywhere,” she said.

Peter Nightingale of Fossil Free RI spoke and mentioned that a BXE delegation had invited Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to attend the rally to defend his support for fracked gas as a bridge fuel, which is both scientifically and morally wrong.  The invitation was also intended to provide the senator with an opportunity to announce what he will do to make sure that FERC does not approve National Grid’s proposed fracked-gas liquefaction facility at Fields Point in Providence.  Shockingly, the senator did not show.

The final event of the day was a visit to FERC commissioner Colette Honorable’s residence in Virginia.  This was the final visit of four to hold tFERC commisioners personally responsible for the local and global destruction caused by their decisions.  Local police, which was awaiting them,  told the rubber-stamp rebels that the neighborhood was posted as private property.   They set up banners and a faux pipeline, and handed out fliers at a nearby intersection.  Before leaving, protesters arranged for a pizza delivery to Commissioner Honorable.  As a special treat, the pizza was served up with eminent domain papers informing the commissioner that her property had been seized to make way for a fracked-gas pipeline.

#VIDEO: #RubberStampRebellion #pipeline crew #EminentDomain delivery #FERC @CHonorableFERC #keepitintheground pic.twitter.com/jbqVh7oRnB

— BeyondExtremeEnergy (@BXEAction) May 19, 2016

This concluded the week of actions marking the beginning of the #RubberStampRebellion.

[Based in part on a BXE press release]

For more see this BXE blog.

Starting around 10 a.m., the group visited Florida Sen. Ben Nelson asking him to oppose several projects moving through the FERC approval process: the Sabal Trail gas pipeline project; New YorkSen​ators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand asking them to speak out against the Spectra AIM pipeline and Rhode Island, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who has a reputation as a climate hawk but who has not responded to his constituents’ demands that he oppose a multitude of gas projects in the state, including a gas liquefaction facility near Providence. Peter Nightingale, a member of Fossil Free Rhode Island and a professor of physics at the University of Rhode Island, says: “In addition to asking Sen. Whitehouse to oppose the liquefaction facility, we want to explain to him that his support for natural gas as a bridge fuel is misguided. Natural gas is worse than coal and oil for global warming.”

In the afternoon the Rebellion moved to the D.C. headquarters of some of the corporations that have benefited and hope to benefit from FERC’s almost unanimous project approvals.

At 6 p.m.,​ another gathering will converge on the home of FERC Commissioner Norman Bay, 1631-1/2 19th St. NW, to hold him accountable for expediting fossil fuel projects that wreck communities and the planet. Methane (so-called “natural” gas is 96 percent methane) contributes 86 times more global warming gases to the atmosphere, per unit mass, than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after release. Several prominent climate scientists say that if we don’t drastically reduce methane releases immediately, there’s no way to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius. Some of Bay’s visitors will spend the night outside his home and hope to converse with him in the morning.

The RubberStampRebellion got off to an energetic start on Monday, as BXEers sang, chanted, and channeled sounds of fracking-related destruction through a sound system, like chain saws cutting down trees that FERC gives companies permission to destroy through the use of eminent domain for private gain.

Monday afternoon, seven climate activists were arrested for blocking the driveway leading to the underground parking garage at FERC. They were charged with unlawful entry and have a court date June 9.

In the evening, six activists visited the Ashburn, VA., home of FERC commissioner Tony Clark.

Although the activists didn’t bring toxic and climate-wrecking air and water pollutants that FERC permits, they taped posters in a park across from the Clark townhouse that included a photo and notified neighbors:

Tony Clark, Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Rubber stamps fracked gas projects for the oil and gas industries; Complicit in the deaths of 100 million people which the World Health Organization says may die by 2030 due to climate change.

They also posted on his front door a notice of eminent domain, similar to the orders used to seize land for pipelines for transporting fracked gas. In March, BXE had a #PancakesNotPipelines action at FERC to protest maple trees razed under an eminent domain seizure for the proposed Constitution pipeline in Pennsylvania and New York, even though all state permits had not been granted. With Josh Fox and Tim DeChristopher acting as pancake chefs, landowner Megan Holleran served up the last drops of syrup from her trees at the event. A week after the Holleran family’s maple trees were cut down, New York said it would not issue permits needed for the pipeline. Read about that action here.

Among those visiting the Clark residence for the #RubberStampRebellion was Wes Eastridge from Marshall, Va., who said:

We’re fighting against the continued development and reliance on methane–because it’s totally unnecessary. FERC allows companies to destroy people’s property with eminent domain and that methane is obtained by an extremely destructive process known as fracking.

​BXE will be visiting all four FERC commissioners at their homes this week.​

Stay tuned & read this blog for updates.
[Based on a BXE press release.]

We’ll be at the headquarters of FERC, 888 First St. NE, Washington, D.C., where the agency rubber stamps approvals for interstate fracked gas pipelines, export terminals and other infrastructure that is destroying local communities and super-charging the climate crisis. (Fracked gas is methane, and leaked methane traps 86 times as much heat per molecule as carbon dioxide.)

We’ll be visiting the four FERC commissioners at their homes to hold them accountable for their decisions, which are made far from the communities affected and with no consideration of the harm from climate change.

In solidarity with frontline communities, we’ll also visit the D.C. headquarters of some of the pipeline and gas companies, whose profit-driven arrogance overrides property rights and even a state constitution, as well as the Congressional offices of some elected officials who don’t support their constituents’ needs to stop the fracked gas build-out.

And, people in 21 frontline communities are holding their own events and have decided to link them to the Rubber Stamp Rebellion in order escalate our collective opposition.

Listen to these voices from the frontlines:

Megan Holleran, New Milford, PA: “The FERC allowed Williams and Cabot to clear over three acres of forest on my family’s property without our permission, for the construction of the Constitution Pipeline, which, due to lack of permits, is now unlikely to be built. Irreparable harm was caused to our home and business, prematurely, for absolutely no reason, and that is entirely the FERC’s fault. I think it’s about time that someone holds the FERC accountable for the decisions it makes. BXE is doing something innovative in forcing the awareness that regulatory agencies are just as responsible and culpable as the corporations for the existence of the current fossil fuel infrastructure and for the future of the industry.”

Hattie Nestel, Athol, MA: “Through an extraordinary uprising of grassroots opposition, support from many elected officials and honest, comprehensive news coverage, we stopped Kinder Morgan’s N.E.D. (Northeast Energy Direct) pipeline. But FERC recently approved Kinder Morgan’s Connecticut Expansion Project, which would tear through our constitutionally protected open space in Otis State Forest. In May, a superior court judge in western Mass. sided with the company, ruling that FERC approval is proof that it has determined the project ‘advances the public interest.’ So our fight continues.”

It’s Time For the Rubber Stamp Rebellion

No New Permits! Keep fossil fuels in the ground!

[From a press release by Beyond Extreme Energy]

In granting the youth a remedy, Judge Hill noted the extraordinary circumstances of the climate crisis, saying, “this is an urgent situation…these kids can’t wait.” The court discussed the catastrophic impacts of climate destabilization globally, including the impending loss of polar bears and low-lying countries like Bangladesh. The court explained that while it had no jurisdiction outside of Washington state, it did have jurisdiction over Ecology and would order the agency to comply with the law and do its part to address the crisis.

After a landmark November, 2015 decision, in which Judge Hill found that the state has a “mandatory duty” to “preserve, protect, and enhance the air quality for the current and future generations,” and found the state’s current standards to fail that standard dramatically, Ecology nonetheless unilaterally withdrew its proposed rule to reduce carbon emissions in the state in February, just months after Judge Hill specifically underscored the urgency of the climate crisis.

“It was absurd for Ecology to withdraw its proposed rule to reduce carbon emissions,” said petitioner Aji Piper, who is also a plaintiff on the federal constitutional climate lawsuit, supported by Our Children’s Trust. “Especially after Judge Hill declared last fall that our ‘very survival depends upon the will of [our] elders to act now…to stem the tide of global warming.’ I think Ecology should be ashamed by its reversal of potentially powerful action and today, Judge Hill issued a significant ruling that should go down in history books. Our government must act to protect our climate for benefit of us and future generations.”

“For the first time, a U.S. court not only recognized the extraordinary harms young people are facing due to climate change, but ordered an agency to do something about it,” said Andrea Rodgers, the Western Environmental Law Center attorney representing the youths. “Ecology is now court-ordered to issue a rule that fulfills its constitutional and public trust duty to ensure Washington does its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the planet.”

“This case explains why youth around this country, and in several other countries, are forced to bring their governments to court to secure a healthy atmosphere and stable climate,” said Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel at Our Children’s Trust. “Despite clear scientific evidence and judicial recognition of the urgency of the climate crisis, Washington and most governments across the U.S. and other countries are failing to take correspondingly urgent, science-based action. That failure unfairly consigns youth to a disproportionately bleak future against which they can only reasonably ask the courts to step in to address this most time sensitive issue of our time.”

“This is a massive victory,” said petitioner Gabe Mandell.

Related cases brought by youth to protect the atmosphere are pending before other U.S. courts in the federal district court in Oregon, and in the state courts of North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Massachusetts and Oregon.

This is a press release of:

• Our Children’s Trust is a nonprofit organization, elevating the voice of youth, those with most to lose, to secure the legal right to a healthy atmosphere and stable climate on behalf of present and future generations. We lead a global human rights and environmental justice campaign to implement enforceable science-based Climate Recovery Plans that will return atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration to levels below 350 ppm.
• The Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) is a public interest nonprofit law firm. WELC combines legal skills with sound conservation biology and environmental science to address major environmental issues throughout the West. WELC does not charge clients and partners for services, but relies instead on charitable gifts from individuals, families, and foundations to accomplish its mission.

Plaintiffs’ attorney, Philip Gregory, with Cotchett, Pitre, & McCarthy of Burlingame, CA, said:  “This decision is one of the most significant in our nation’s history.  The court upheld our claims that the federal government intensified the danger to our plaintiffs’ lives, liberty and property. Judge Coffin decided our complaint will move forward and put climate science squarely in front of the federal courts.  The next step is for the court to order our government to cease jeopardizing the climate system for present and future generations. The court gave America’s youth a fair opportunity to be heard.”

As part of Friday’s historic decision, Judge Coffin characterized the case as an “unprecedented lawsuit” addressing “government action and inaction” resulting “in carbon pollution of the atmosphere, climate destabilization, and ocean acidification.” In deciding the case will proceed, Judge Coffin wrote: “The debate about climate change and its impact has been before various political bodies for some time now. Plaintiffs give this debate justiciability by asserting harms that befall or will befall them personally and to a greater extent than older segments of society. It may be that eventually the alleged harms, assuming the correctness of plaintiffs’ analysis of the impacts of global climate change, will befall all of us. But the intractability of the debates before Congress and state legislatures and the alleged valuing of short term economic interest despite the cost to human life, necessitates a need for the courts to evaluate the constitutional parameters of the action or inaction taken by the government. This is especially true when such harms have an alleged disparate impact on a discrete class of society.”

The court rejected the courtroom arguments of government and fossil fuel industry that Congress could sell the coastal sea waters of the U.S. to Exxon.  Instead, the court found that the federal government is subject to the public trust doctrine and that “such a sweeping and profound effect” as suggested by the defendants is not consistent with U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence.  In January 2016, Defendant status was granted to three fossil fuel industry trade associations, representing nearly all of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies, who called the case “extraordinary” and “a direct, substantial threat to [their] businesses.”

The decision denied motions seeking to dismiss the youth’s climate change lawsuit.  The motions were brought by the federal government and the fossil fuel industry who denied any duty under the constitution or the public trust doctrine to protect essential natural resources, such as air and oceans, for the benefit of all present and future generations. The court heard oral arguments from attorneys for two hours on March 9, 2016, before hundreds of people supporting the youth, while hundreds more waited in lines to enter the courthouse. In an unprecedented move, oral argument was streamed via video feed into three additional courtrooms in Eugene and one in Portland, OR.

In denying the motions of the federal government and the fossil fuel industry, the court’s decision framed the issue as follows: “Plaintiffs are suing the United States … because the government has known for decades that carbon dioxide (C0₂) pollution has been causing catastrophic climate change and has failed to take necessary action to curtail fossil fuel emissions. Moreover, plaintiffs allege that the government and its agencies have taken action or failed to take action that has resulted in increased carbon pollution through fossil fuel extraction, production, consumption, transportation, and exportation. Plaintiffs allege the current actions and omissions of defendants make it extremely difficult for plaintiffs to protect their vital natural systems and a livable world. Plaintiffs assert the actions and omissions of defendants that increased C02 emissions ‘shock the conscience,’ and are infringing the plaintiffs’ right to life and liberty in violation of their substantive due process rights.”  The court’s decision also upheld the youth plaintiffs’ claims in the Fifth and Ninth Amendments “by denying them protections afforded to previous generations and by favoring short term economic interests of certain citizens.” Finally, Judge Coffin upheld plaintiffs’ assertion of violations under the public trust doctrine, ruling that there is a federal public trust and plaintiffs’ claim can proceed.

“Judge Coffin accepted the complaint’s presentation of undisputed scientific evidence that the federal government has, and continues to, damage these young plaintiffs’ personal security and other fundamental rights.  Unlike almost every other case deciding constitutional rights throughout history, the climate rights that will now be decided in this case, cannot be vindicated by future generations.  The science is clear that if we do not obtain the relief we seek in this case, our climate system will be irreversibly and catastrophically damaged,” said Julia Olson, counsel for the plaintiffs and Executive Director of Our Children’s Trust. “Now these young plaintiffs have the right to prove that the government’s role in harming them has been knowing and deliberate for more than 50 years.”

Dr. James Hansen, guardian in the case for all future generations, and world renown climate scientist said: “Science clearly establishes that our planet’s increasing energy imbalance – caused in substantial part by our government’s support for the exploitation and combustion of fossil fuel – imposes increasingly severe risks on our common future.  Now, from Eugene Oregon, comes a prescient and insightful ruling from a federal district court.  Judge Coffin in effect declares that the voice of children and future generations, supported by the relevant science, must be heard.  We will now proceed to prove our claims.  It is perhaps not too late for serious action to preserve a viable climate system that will be required by our posterity.”

This case alleges the federal government is violating plaintiffs’ constitutional and public trust rights by promoting the development and use of fossil fuels. The complaint explains that, for more than fifty years, the U.S. government has known that carbon dioxide (CO₂) pollution from burning fossil fuels causes global warming and dangerous climate change, and that continuing to burn fossil fuels destabilizes the climate system.  The next step is a review of Judge Coffin’s decision by another judge in the same court, Judge Ann Aiken.

“This is as important a court case as the planet has yet seen,” said Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org. “To watch the next generation stand up for every generation that will follow is as moving as it is significant.”

Kelsey Juliana, youth plaintiff from Eugene, OR, observed that “this decision marks a tipping point on the scales of justice. Youth voices are uniting around the world to demand that government uphold our constitutional rights and protect the planet for our and future generations’ survivability. This will be the trial of the century that will determine if we have a right to a livable future, or if corporate power will continue to deny our rights for the sake of their own wealth.”

“The future of our generation is at stake,” said 16-year-old plaintiff Victoria Barrett. “People label our generation as dreamers, but hope is not the only tool we have. I am a teenager. I want to do what I love and live a life full of opportunities. I want the generation that follows to have the same chance. I absolutely refuse to let our government’s harmful action, corporate greed, and the pure denial of climate science get in the way of that. If anything, I’m going to use my positive energy to show my government that I won’t let my world stop for them. WE won’t let our world stop for them. Our generation will continue to be a force for the world.”

Youth plaintiff Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh Martinez commented, “When those in power stand alongside the very industries that threaten the future of my generation instead of standing with the people, it is a reminder that they are not our leaders. The real leaders are the twenty youth standing with me in court to demand justice for my generation and justice for all youth. We will not be silent, we will not go unnoticed, and we are ready to stand to protect everything our “leaders” have failed to fight for. They are afraid of the power we have to create change. And this change we are creating, will go down in history.”

Judge Coffin’s Order can be read in its entirely at:  Our Children’s Trust; also see Earth Guardians.

The AIM Project is particularly contentious because it includes construction of a 42-inch diameter high pressure interstate gas pipeline within 105 feet of critical infrastructure at the aging Indian Point nuclear facility, which is situated at the intersection of two earthquake fault lines. A 36-inch pipeline that is part of the AIM project also runs within 500 feet of a stone quarry in the West Roxbury section of Boston, where active blasting occurs. Following a tritium leak from Indian Point in February, New York’s Governor Cuomo asked FERC to stay construction on the project while an independent study of the health and safety impacts could be conducted. Last Friday, FERC denied his request too.

“Spectra Energy’s AIM expansion project has always been a spectacularly bad idea,” said Karina Wilkinson, Food & Water Watch Local Coordinator MA. “We have taken every step we could to oppose this project and now we have no other legal recourse than to go to Federal court. Time and again, we have seen fracked gas pipeline companies trample the rights of individuals and communities. We cannot rely on government agencies to protect us from the devastating consequences that will impact our country and the planet if the rush to profit is allowed to continue and if the U.S. continues to move forward with gaining access to the fossil fuel export market.”

Riverkeeper President Paul Gallay said “It’s disturbing that a federal regulator that’s duty- bound to protect the health and welfare of the public remains oblivious to the many potential dangers and pitfalls this project creates. It is even more disturbing that FERC continues to ignore the real risks involved with running a gas pipeline adjacent to the property of an aging, problematic nuclear plant, which poses a great risk to the region even without this project.”

Affected property owner and SAPE member Nancy Vann stated “We’ve been raising valid concerns about this project since 2013 – but when a captive agency like FERC is making the decisions and then reviewing its own conclusions it’s difficult to obtain a fair hearing. We are pleased to finally be able to take our issues to Federal court and are hopeful that they will get the consideration they deserve.”

In addition to concerns about Indian Point and the quarry, our groups are highly concerned about the issue of “segmentation” of the Algonquin pipeline expansion into three separate FERC proposals. By calling this pipeline’s expansion by three different names, Spectra Energy has so far managed to avoid review of the full project’s environmental impacts. Courts have found that type of manipulation to be unlawful in similar cases.

Segmentation is reaching a new level in Rhode Island with National Grid’s plan for a natural gas liquefaction facility at Fields Point and with Invenergy’s controversial proposal to construct a fossil-fuel, mostly fracked gas, 1-gigawatt power plant in Burrillville.  Indeed, a study submitted by Invenergy to assess the effect of the facility on the Rhode Island environment fails mention that just across the border, in Uxbridge, MA, EMI NextGen is planning to build yet another 1-gigawatt power plant.

[1] The New York-based groups are: Food & Water Watch NY, Riverkeeper, Inc., Reynolds Hill, Inc., Sierra Club Lower Hudson Chapter, and Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion. The Massachusetts-based groups are: Charles River Spring Valley Neighborhood Association, Food & Water Watch MA, West Roxbury Saves Energy and Better Future Project. Fossil Free Rhode Island and Capitalism vs. the Climate from Connecticut represent the other two states impacted by the project.

March 24, Washington, DC — Gasland filmmaker Josh Fox, Megan Holleran and five others were arrested in the driveway of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) while waiting for commissioners to join them for pancakes topped with the last drops of maple syrup from the Holleran family farm in New Milford, PA. They and about two dozen other activists were protesting FERC’s approval for the clear-cutting of a wide swath of maple trees at the Holleran farm.

Blocked by guards from entering the FERC building, Fox repeatedly called on the commissioners to come down for “the last dregs of syrup” and a conversation about fracked-gas infrastructure and climate change.

“Everyone I know is fighting a pipeline or a compressor station or a power plant that is in front of FERC for approval,” said Fox, wearing an apron that said “Pancakes not Pipelines.”

It is clear to me that FERC has to be the most destructive agency in the United States right now. They are faceless, nameless, unelected and ignore citizen input. I think of FERC as the Phantom Menace. The agency’s commissioners have been rubber-stamping fracking infrastructure all over country that threatens local communities and the planet by accelerating climate change.

Climate activist Tim DeChristopher, of Pawtucket, RI, wearing a chef’s cap and a “Pancakes not Pipelines” apron, cooked the pancakes on a solar-powered cooktop set up on the sidewalk in front of FERC. DeChristopher said FERC had

cut down life-giving maple trees to make room for a death-dealing pipeline. The agency has been able to get away with this shameful behavior by operating in the shadows. We’re here today to invite FERC employees into the open, to engage in a human way with the people whose lives are impacted by FERC’s decisions.

Protesters carried banners that said “Stop the Methane Pipeline” and “Pancakes not Pipelines.” Led by singer-songwriter Bethany Yarrow, who was also arrested and is the daughter of Peter Yarrow, protesters sang songs, including “We Shall Not Be Moved” and “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round.”

While seated at a table, eating pancakes and waiting for FERC commissioners or employees to join them, several people hurt directly by the agency’s permits also spoke.

Holleran, among those arrested with Fox, said FERC had given approval for the trees to be cleared before the pipeline had all the required permits. “We followed all the rules. We asked them to wait before doing irreparable harm to our farm. This could happen to anyone,” she said. “FERC, come on down and chat with me. FERC has a chance to be accountable now.”

Nancy Vann, a Westchester, NY, landowner who blocked tree-cutting on her land for the Spectra Energy’s Alqonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline, said,

Each tree that is cut is another step toward an uninhabitable planet. I’m here for Megan and her family and for the 20 million people living within a 50-mile radius of the pipeline that’s planning to go 105 feet from the Indian Point nuclear power plant and two earthquake fault lines.

Activist and psychiatrist Lise van Susteren said, “We are here to tell [FERC] we will not stand by while you have this unholy alliance with industry.” Psychiatrists and other health-care professionals have to report to authorities any child abuse, she said. “Every child stands to suffer because of what we are doing to the climate.”

“We can not afford to think what is happening now doesn’t affect us all,” said Aria Doe, co-founder of the Action Center for Education and Community Development in Rockaways, NY, where neighborhoods were inundated by Hurricane Sandy. Much of the pollution ends up in poor communities of color, she said. “I’m here for my future grandchildren.”

Robin Maguire from Conestoga, PA, said the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline is routed through sacred burial sites.

Also at the action was Karenna Gore of the Center for Earth Ethics.

In addition to Fox, Holleran and Yarrow, those arrested were: Gabe Shapiro from Massachusetts; Jane Kendall from New York City; Don Weightman, a BXE organizer from Philadelphia; Ron Coler, a Select Board member of Ashfield, MA, who’s fighting the NED pipeline and Connecticut Expansion.

Yarrow’s 9-year-old daughter, Valentina Ossa, watched in tears as her mother, still singing, was handcuffed and put in a Homeland Security van.

Beyond Extreme Energy organized the action, one of many the group has led at FERC. BXE is working with groups and individuals across the United States to revoke FERC’s mandate to operate an arm of the oil and gas industry. It seeks an end to FERC permits for new pipelines and other projects that allow the expansion of the fracked-gas industry. BXE has made this demand in an escalating series of protests at FERC beginning in 2014 and including disruptions at the monthly FERC meetings, described in the March 20, 2016, New York Times article “Environmental Activists Take to Local Protests for Global Results.”

BXE will continue its actions at FERC during the Rubber Stamp Rebellion planned from May 15 to 22.

As the New York Times wrote in the article quoted in BXE’s press release:

Greg Yost, a math teacher in North Carolina who works with the group NC PowerForward, said the activists emboldened one another.

“When we pick up the ball and run with it here in North Carolina, we’re well aware of what’s going on in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island,” he said. “The fight we’re doing here, it bears on what happens elsewhere — we’re all in this together, we feel like.”

Adding pictures to this, Tom Jefferson —a Pittsburgh, PA, documentarist— made a wonderful video showing the nationwide resistance against the national energy summed up by FERC  Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur.  Unfortunately, she is as clear as she is wrong:

I believe that we as a nation can achieve real environmental progress, including on climate change, but only if we’re willing to build the infrastructure, both gas and electric, and build the energy markets to make that possible.

Last year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a build-out of the compressor station in Burrillville which started in the fall of 2015 and is part of an interstate pipeline expansion called the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) Project.  This project has been highly controversial.  In New York, the expanded pipeline would pass within 105 feet of critical infrastructure at the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

In response to this situation, last month Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York directed four New York state agencies to perform an independent safety risk analysis and asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to halt construction of the pipeline until this review is completed.

Invenergy’s CREC proposal, which capitalizes on the AIM pipeline expansion, raises serious concerns about the cumulative impact of these various projects on public health in Rhode Island.

Last week, in an email to Directors Janet Coit of the RI Department of Environmental Management and Nicolle Alexander-Scott of the RI Department of Health, University of Rhode Island physics professor Peter Nightingale raised a number of questions about the cumulative impacts of fracked gas infrastructure developments on public health in Burrillville, RI.  Among these are Spectra Energy’s AIM Project, Invenergy’s CREC, and Access Northeast, a project of Eversource Energy, National Grid and Spectra Energy.  In addition, on December 1 of last year, TransCanada applied to the Energy Facility Siting Board to build yet another gas-fired power plant, Ocean State Power Phase III, in Burrillville.  TransCanada seems to have abandoned the project for now, but who knows for how long?

Nightingale wonders:  “How can a modeling done at average temperature and humidity conditions capture the true episodic nature of the impact of CREC and the other nearby pollution sources on public health?  Human health is highly susceptible to episodes and these are smoothed out by taking averages.  Temperature, humidity and sunlight fluctuate wildly in Rhode Island and, due to climate change, they are expected to vary increasingly fiercely during the lifetime of the proposed Clear River Energy Center.”  Nightingale refers in this context to research by Hansen and Sato that found a more than ten-fold increase in weather extremes that occurred during the last 45 years, a time span comparable to the expected life time of the power plant Invenergy is proposing.

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As part of the regulatory process of the siting board, Invenergy submitted a report produced by the ESS Group, an environmental consulting group, that claims to take into account the polluting background effect of other sources in Rhode Island near Burrillville.  Data required for this was, as the ESS study mentions, supplied by the Department of Environmental Management.  Obviously, no information is available yet for the new situation that was created by the 2015 compressor station build-out that is part of the AIM Project.

The environmental impact study performed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission before it approved the AIM Project pipeline expansion last year lists Providence County as “moderate nonattainment,” which means that the air quality is below the standard required by the Clean Air Act.  The same  federal study shows that the noise level of Spectra Energy’s compressor station was above the legal limit even before the last build-out started.

In addition to the public health risks posed by CREC, it is clear that building a 1-gigawatt fossil fuel power plant in Burrillville will be a serious impediment to the growth of green energy in Rhode Island and neighboring states.  As Marie Schopac of Charlestown, a member of Fossil Free RI, remarked: “The financial investment in the wind farm will be all for naught if a gigawatt fracked gas power plant is built. Rhode Island needs a coordinated energy policy.”

Clearly, all of the above raises serious questions about the validity of the assessment of the impact of the newly proposed power station.

Hansen’s latest: Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms Video Abstract
Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions