The AIM Pipeline is a 42-inch, high pressure, fracked gas pipeline, which if completed will run through residential communities and within 105 feet of critical Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant safety facilities. The fully self-contained home is a strong symbol of both resilience and resistance: It is intended to halt construction of the dangerous AIM Pipeline and to represent the safe alternative living situation we need to move towards to fight climate change and to halt our dependence on fossil fuel, which drives the buildout of dangerous infrastructure like the AIM Pipeline. The container home was built using reclaimed and recycled materials, is powered by both photovoltaic solar panels and a bicycle generator, has a green roof growing succulents and herbs, has a solar-heated shower and a compost toilet, and comfortable living space and beds for two occupants. All of these measures are important, but without stopping fossil fuel infrastructure, we are still on a path to disaster – which is why this project is also designed to physically stop construction on the AIM Pipeline.

The sustainable home has two occupants, both of whom walked across the entire country to raise awareness about climate change as part of the Great March for Climate: Jane Kendall is a 65-year-old retired New York mother of two who would like to be spending more time with her family, but feels morally obligated as an elder to do her small part to stop Spectra and to fight for a renewable energy future; and Lee Stewart, a 29-year-old organizer with Beyond Extreme Energy, who has been working to stop FERC since they approved a fracked gas compressor station near his home as part of project that would feed Dominion’s Cove Point LNG export facility.

“I was inspired by the fierce, loving determination in the voices of 13 Resist AIM members who disrupted a FERC public meeting to call out the commissioners for their complicity in the destruction Spectra represents,” said Lee Stewart. “It is an honor to take up temporary residence in New York on the route of the AIM Pipeline.”

“Spectra has placed all of us on a destructive path and in harm’s way. Today this simple small house, built from reused and repurposed materials and powered by renewable energy, stands on the AIM Pipeline path to halt construction,” said Jane Kendall.

This action comes after years of residents and grassroots groups actively engaging in the regulatory process, only to be ignored by FERC. The City of Boston and several grassroots groups have filed a lawsuit in Federal Court challenging FERC approval of the project. In February, Governor Andrew Cuomo wrote to FERC asking for an immediate halt to construction while New York State conducts an independent risk assessment of siting the massive, high-pressure pipeline next to Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. FERC denied the Governor’s request, and claimed that a risk assessment by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) showed that the plant was safe. Just five days ago, on May 20th, Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand called for an immediate halt to construction. Spectra’s Director of Stakeholder Outreach, Marylee Hanley, responded that “Algonquin Gas Transmission resumed construction on the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) project in April and will continue with its construction.”

“Now Spectra is rapidly proceeding with construction in our area despite opposition from thousands of New Yorkers and elected representatives,” said Kendall, “We are at a critical stage in this struggle, with project completion scheduled for November. Each day more trees are cut, more blasting takes place, and more pipeline is laid. It is necessary for us to stop this project now.”

There is no more time to wait. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has shown that it will not protect us from the fossil fuel industry that is destroying our climate. Instead, everyday people are stepping up and modeling the future we want to see while taking a stand against the dangerous pipeline that threatens us and our friends and neighbors.

“I am also taking this step because of the amazing connection I feel to the amazing people all over the state who are not only standing up to AIM, Spectra, and FERC, but who are also finding ways to build community during a time when the power that be are bent on keeping us isolated and narrowly focused,” said Stewart.

Online: www.resistaim.com

On Facebook: www.facebook.com/resistaim

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/ResistAIM

#StopSpectra #ResistAIM #Blockadia

[From a press release]

Democracy Now! covered this story here.

Lee Stewart protested Textron in RI, as seen in this piece on RI Future.

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]

Fasters from Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE), together with their supporters from several faiths, will break bread in front of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in D.C. today to end a dramatic 18-day hunger strike undertaken to demand that FERC stop issuing permits for the pipelines, storage facilities and LNG export terminals that use fracked natural gas, and instead heed Pope Francis’s call to care for the Earth, according to a BXE press release.

On Friday copies of the pope’s encyclical will be presented to the five FERC commissioners. There will be music, brief statements, and a procession, featuring BXE’s colorful and moving 50-foot anti-fracking banner, “The United Sates of Fracking.” BXE will also display the new quilt made in collaboration between fasters and residents of far-flung communities fighting fracking infrastructure in their communities.

“Being here, eating no food for 18 days, has taken me at 72 the oldest faster a fascinating and disorienting rabbit hole, where ‘normal’ appears absurd and even suicidal, and where unrealistic may be our only way out,” said Steve Norris, 72, of North Carolina, is one of the oldest fasters. “I think because of our legal structures, because of their narrow fossil fuel focus, and because people disbelieve in viable alternatives, their minds are wedded to the madness of more fossil fuels.”

Sean Glenn, 23, of Connecticut, is one of the youngest fasters. “I think this fast has just reinforced my belief in the power of people and our ability to overcome our old ways and really embrace new ones with complete curiosity, not knowing what we’re getting into,” she says. “The love that everyone has shown has been really powerful and the respect that we’re receiving for it is what has surprised me.”

WHERE: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), 888 1st St NE, Washington, DC.

WHEN: Friday, Sept. 25, noon to 1:30 p.m.

WHO: The fasters, their supporters, and faith leaders.

WHY: The BXE fasters demand that FERC end its fracking-friendly support for expanding natural gas infrastructure, which has led to a toxic locked-in fossil fuel network at the expense of safe, sound, and clean renewable energy. Fracking wells and gas pipelines contaminate the homes and communities nearby, and also leak methane, which is responsible for about 25% of the man-made global warming we experience today.

Earlier this week a rally took place at the RI State House for People, Peace and Planet.

On Wednesday afternoon fasters adorned a street corner on the city side of the State House.

After that, on Wednesday, there was a vigil and prayer service at the State House in anticipation of Pope Francis’ address to Congress the following day.

Finally on Thursday, Fossil Free RI attended the celebration of International Peace Day at URI.

Today at noon, our friends in DC, in Rhode Island and across the nation will break their fast. Also my wife, Beatrijs, and I will end our two-week fast; the battle against extractivism and wholesale destruction of life on Earth continues: “Where there is no vision, the people perish …” (Proverbs 29:18)

In July, BXE conducted an action that resulted in 25 arrests, Glick said. In November the group arranged to have people arrested for five straight days, culminating in an action that prevented FERC from opening for business for two and a half hours. The group’s latest tactic is fasting outside the FERC offices, hoping that FERC employees have a conscience and that they’re willing to act on it.

“In concert with the Pope coming to the US we decided to do a fast,” said Glick, “to both support the Pope on environmental issues and to draw attention to FERCs failure to do its job as a regulatory agency.”

Glick says that the “gas energy companies always wins when it comes to interstate gas infrastructure.” FERC approves “virtually everything.” One group went back through FERC’s records and found that “there were 160 consecutive approvals of pipelines, with no dis-approvals.”

Over the course of the fast, BXE members have had a number of interactions with FERC employees, from conversations to glances. “We know we’ve had some impact,” says Glick hopefully, even as he maintains that FERC is corrupt.

“There is a revolving door in terms of people working at FERC and people going to work for the gas industry… It’s a classic case of what Robert Kennedy called a ‘captured agency.'”

Protesting BXE members came and went as I interviewed Glick, maybe 25 in total. Glick described the group as a “spiritual community.” When I asked him about that, he explained that, “I describe it as a spiritual community. We meet twice a day at nine. We check in on everybody physically, we try to help them… at the end of the meeting we join hands and have a minute of silence together. Its very powerful. It’s like a family atmosphere.”

Can activists turn our government, captured as it is by those who profit off of fracked methane, towards a truly renewable energy future in time to prevent the worst effects of climate catastrophe? That’s an open question.

With FERC closing up shop for two days because of the traffic congestion expected to accompany the Pope’s visit, the BXE fasters are taking their protest into the city, marching tomorrow to meet up with activists from the Franciscan Action Network. Twenty-five college students from North Carolina are arriving to help the weakened fasters make the trek.

On Friday, after the Pope leaves for New York and the fast is officially broken, BXE will attempt to distribute copies of the papal encyclical on climate to the FERC’s five commissioners.

“The Pope’s opposed to fracking,” says protester Jimmy Betts in a statement,  “FERC is responsible for rubber­stamping pretty much every application for fracked-gas infrastructure.” When the fasters brought pointed this out to FERC Chairman Norman Bay as he was leaving the building a few days ago, he said, “These are just pipelines. Blaming us is like blaming the steel companies that make pipes.”

You can watch my full interview with Ted Glick below: