In the past few weeks, the Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign and our partners have helped secure game-changing victories in our work to stop fracked gas pipelines. There are more than 10,000 miles and nearly 100 large, multi-state fracked gas pipelines proposed in the U.S. right now. If these pipelines are constructed, fracking will increase, and our communities and waterways will be irreparably harmed, and climate-disrupting methane pollution will increase at a time when we urgently need to act to stop the worst impacts of climate change. And if the utilities and pipeline companies have their way, consumers will end up footing the bill despite more fracked gas pipelines being unnecessary and unjustified. The good news is that these pipelines are being fought by communities, lawyers, climate activists and many others—and we're winning. State agencies are responding to overwhelming public pressure and starting to get involved to protect waterways from the impacts of pipelines. The attempt to lock us into another generation of relying on fossil fuels is being met with resistance at every turn.
Sabal Trail pipeline under construction in Florida. John Moran
By Elly Benson
Last week, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) attempts to downplay the massive climate impacts of the Southeast Market Pipelines Project, a $3.5 billion project that includes the 515-mile Sabal Trail pipeline. FERC and the pipeline companies argued that even though the project's purpose is to transport fracked gas through Alabama and Georgia to Florida power plants, FERC nonetheless could ignore the greenhouse gas emissions from burning the gas at those plants.
The U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Tuesday saying that the Federal Environmental Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) failed to adequately review the environmental impacts of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the fracked gas Sabal Trail pipeline, which runs more than 500 miles through Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
They landed, one after another, in 2015: plans for nearly a dozen interstate pipelines to move natural gas beneath rivers, mountains and people's yards. Like spokes on a wheel, they'd spread from Appalachia to markets in every direction.
Together these new and expanded pipelines—comprising 2,500 miles of steel in all—would double the amount of gas that could flow out of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The cheap fuel will benefit consumers and manufacturers, the developers promise.
Under orders from President Trump, the Army Corps of Engineers on Feb. 7 approved a final easement allowing Energy Transfer Partners to drill under the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Construction has re-started, and lawyers for the company said it could take as little as 30 days for oil to flow through the Dakota Access Pipeline.
