For Immediate Release
WWALS and 182 Organizations from 35 States Call for Congressional Review of FERC
Hundreds of Nonprofit Organizations Join to Demand Reform of Rogue Agency
Washington, DC, September 21, 2016 — More than 180 organizations representing communities across America called on leaders in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold congressional hearings into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) extensive history of bias and abuse. The groups are also requesting reform of the Natural Gas Act, which the groups say, gives too much power to FERC and too little to state and local officials.
“The time has now come for Congress to investigate how FERC is using its authority and to recognize that major changes are in fact necessary in order to protect people, including future generations, from the ramifications of FERC’s misuse of its power and implementation of the Natural Gas Act,” says Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and a primary organizer of the effort.
“A prime example of FERC’s dereliction of duty to the public
benefit is the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline Spectra Energy
is drilling through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida and under our
Withlacoochee River in Georgia and our Suwannee River in
Florida,” says John S. Quarterman, president of WWALS
Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS), the Waterkeeper® Affiliate for
the upper Suwannee River. He added, “FERC failed in its due
diligence by opaque selection of environmental contractors, by
issuing its permit before permits from two states and the Army
Corps, by ignoring copious new geological and other evidence, and by
giving Sabal Trail construction go-ahead while a lawsuit is still
pending by Flint Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, Gulf Restoration Network,
and others, including construction through properties whose
landowners have not even had eminent domain compensation hearings.
Most egregiously, despite FPL, the source of the $3 billion for this
boondoggle, admitting in its 2016 Ten Year Plan that Florida needs
no new electricity until 2024 at the earliest, FERC refuses to even
reconsider the alleged “need” for this unnecessary,
destructive, and hazardous pipeline. Corporate profits for Spectra
Energy from Houston, Texas and Enbridge from Calgary, Alberta are no
justification for taking local land and risking our water, air,
taxes, and safety.”
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