Tag Archives: Senate

Call Senators now to stop FERC nominees 2017-08-03

Update 2017-08-03: The Senate already did it. But there are more nominations to oppose and other things you can do.

FERC could suddenly get a quorum. Another FERC nominee went to the Senate Wednesday: no FERC rubberstamp Richard Click, general counsel to the minority party, the Democrats, on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Even the two nominees already forwarded to the full Senate June 6, 2017 if confirmed, added to the one still at FERC, would produce a quorum of 3 out of 5. So please call your Senators now and ask them not to vote to confirm any FERC nominee who does not vow to turn the agency to solar and wind power on a smart grid.

No, this won’t stop or turn off Sabal Trail. But it could stop further pipeline boondoggles from being confirmed. That’s good in itself, and could also erode the credibility of Sabal Trail with its creditors.

Here are telephone numbers for Georgia and Florida Senators, and there’s a script farther down. Continue reading →

U.S. Chamber wants FERC nominees approved 2017-05-31

The key phrase is actually exactly why FERC nominees should not be approved: 170531 FERCNominations-PowellChatterjee Murkowski Cantwell-0001

“…but of increasingly vital importance, also oversees the permitting and construction of natural gas pipelines, gas storage projects, and liquefied natural gas terminals.”

Funny how the Chamber didn’t mention fracking or LNG export. We don’t need more pipelines taking people’s property and risking our water and lives for the profit of a few fossil fuel executives cashing out before their industry goes belly-up.

WWALS recommends a swift vote to deny these FERC nominees and any others who do not vow to “to develop the new energy infrastructure necessary to ensure future domestic energy security” by rapidly deploying sun and wind power with no more new pipelines. Please call your Senators or members of that Committee to recommend they get on with real renewable energy, not 20th century fossil fuel stranded assets.

U.S. Chamber letter to U.S. Senate Energy Committee

Continue reading →

People before profits: call your Senators today against S. 951 and for EPA

Please call your U.S. Senators today and ask them to oppose Senate Bill 951, the so-called Regulatory Accountability Act, which would actually obstruct enforcing regulations that protect our clean air and water. As Suwannee Riverkeeper among 121 U.S. Waterkeeper Members and Affiliates told the EPA yesterday, we need stronger protections against coal ash, unnecessary pipelines, and fracking, not less. Solar and wind power already employ more people than coal, oil, and gas combined, so there’s no economic reason to let the failing fossil fuel industry crimp our regulatory system like this, and every reason of drinking water, industry, recreation, and wildlife to keep it clean.

That’s 202-224-3121
Georgia: David Perdue and Johnny Isakson
Florida: Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio

S.951 Dont let Industry Hijack our Regulatory Process

Larissa Liebmann, Waterkeeper Alliance, 15 May 2017, Don’t let Industry Hijack our Regulatory Process! Continue reading →

Nichols Spring ERP, Withlacoochee (south) River, Sumter County, FL

Apparently Charlie Dean has one more day left on an FDEP permit to build a dock at Nichols Spring on the Withlacoochee (south) River at Lat: 28° 50′ 23.6438″ Lon: -82° 12′ 9.8242″ (28.839901, -82.202729), at SR 44 on CR 251 West, Wildwood, in Sumter County, Florida. The nearest house, maybe his, is at 5927 CR 251W, Lake Panasoffkee, FL 33538.

Site Plan

Possibly this is former Florida State Senator Charlie Dean (R-District 5), who represented parts or all of Baker, Citrus, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Lafayette, Levy, Marion, Suwannee, and Union Counties, Florida, but curiously not Sumter County.

Found via Continue reading →

Ask Congress to have GAO investigate FERC

It’s time to throw a spotlight on FERC’s favoratism. Maya K. van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, who has been fighting pipeline projects for years, asks all of us to sign a petition to ask two Senators to get the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to “conduct an official investigation into the operations of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”).”.

Or ask your member of the House of Representatives Continue reading →

Flint Riverkeeper to GA Senate Aquifer Storage Study Committee

The same Floridan Aquifer underlies the Flint River, and our Withlacoochee, Alapaha, and other rivers, all of Florida, and across south Georgia all the way to the coast, where Gordon Rogers, Flint Riverkeeper, explained it to the Georgia Senate’s Long-Term Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) Study Committee, 4 August 2014 on Jekyll Island. The ASR idea of pumping treated water into the ground for later retrieval is a bad idea, as Gordon spelled out.

See especially this part in Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers’ Comments to the Senate ASR Study Committee,

In central south GA, eastern and coastal GA, Floridan water is thousands of years old, quite pristine, and is so slow to recharge that essentially it does not recharge in comparison to human uses.

Remember, the Flint River basin where the Georgia legislature keeps trying to implement ASR is the next one to the west Continue reading →