A retired West Virginia miner suffering from black lung visits a doctor for tests. Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images
In some states like West Virginia, coal mines have been classified as essential services and are staying open during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the close quarters miners work in and the known risks to respiratory health put miners in harm's way during the spread of the coronavirus.
<p>In Appalachia, miners with pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease, are at particularly high risk of coronavirus, according to <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-coal-miners-black-lung_n_5e862723c5b6a949183323d7" target="_blank">HuffPost</a>. Official <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/upd-07-20-18.html" target="_blank">statistics</a> from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put the number of underground coal miners with black lung disease at one in 10, though experts estimate the number could be 20 percent or higher.</p><p>When someone has black lung disease, scarring in the respiratory tract makes breathing labored. The notion of adding exposure to a severe respiratory illness like COVID-19 has some workers terrified, according to <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-coal-miners-black-lung_n_5e862723c5b6a949183323d7" target="_blank">HuffPost</a>. Furthermore, the communities where coal miners live tend to have higher than average comorbidities like obesity and diabetes.</p>
<p>Appalachians, for example are more likely than other Americans to have ailments such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, due in part to smoking and a more sedentary lifestyle, according to the <a href="https://www.arc.gov/assets/research_reports/Health_Disparities_in_Appalachia_August_2017.pdf" target="_blank">Appalachian Regional Commission</a>, all of which could complicate the effects of COVID-19.</p><p>"Nobody knows what this virus is going to do when it gets to this area," said Jimmy Moore, a 74-year-old black lung patient in Shelby Gap, Kentucky, to <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-coal-miners-black-lung_n_5e862723c5b6a949183323d7" target="_blank">HuffPost</a>. "It's probably just going to wipe us out."</p>
<p>The age of many black lung sufferers also complicates exposure to the coronavirus, according to Anna Allen, a West Virginia doctor who cares for black lung patients, as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-12/black-lung-coal-miners-facing-serious-threat-from-virus-spread" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a> reported.</p><p>In Australia, which has a robust coal mining industry and a significant portion of GDP derived from exporting coal to China and India, there have been drastic improvements since 2015 to improve working conditions for miners. However, miners with long-term exposure have most likely already had their lungs damaged but may not know it yet.</p>
<p>"The disease usually takes a minimum of five years to 10 years in very heavy exposure to develop, and a bit longer if the exposures are not so heavy," said Dr. Robert Cohen, the medical director of the Black Lung Center of Excellence at the University of Illinois, to the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-02/black-lung-sufferers-bunker-down-to-avoid-coronavirus/12092680" target="_blank">Australian Broadcasting Corporation</a>. "So we're not likely going to see that for a little bit of time yet in terms of the effect of new dust controls. While we are getting a number of new cases, I think that in some ways we are gathering up these cases that were probably undiagnosed and hadn't been paid attention to before."</p><p>Cohen said that people with black lung disease exposed to coronavirus would face severe complications.</p><p>"Coronavirus is definitely worse in people who have underlying lung disease," he said to the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-02/black-lung-sufferers-bunker-down-to-avoid-coronavirus/12092680" target="_blank">Australian Broadcasting Corporation</a>.</p><p>"We actually closed all our black lung clinics and we're asking miners not to come in for exams at the moment. We don't think it's worth the risk {of} them being in hospitals and clinics where sick people are at this time."</p>
<p>"We are seriously worried about our population out here," said Teresa Tyson, president and CEO of The Health Wagon, which operates free clinics in Wise, Virginia, and surrounding counties, to <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-coal-miners-black-lung_n_5e862723c5b6a949183323d7" target="_blank">HuffPost</a>. She added that her father is a former coal miner who has black lung. COVID-19 "would be a nail in the coffin," she said.</p><p>Tyson's clinic tried to make sure all her black lung patients had three months of medicine and frequently check in by phone or video. In nearby West Virginia, however, many rural black lung patients have neither the technology nor broadband service for telemedicine, according to Dan Doyle, who runs a breathing clinic in West Virginia, as <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-coal-miners-black-lung_n_5e862723c5b6a949183323d7" target="_blank">HuffPost</a> reported.</p><p>Despite pleas for social distancing, Doyle said he hasn't seen much change in mining operations in recent weeks. Mine workers are also still walking around town as usual, he said, possibly spreading the virus without knowing.</p><p>"It looks to me like they're going about their business," Doyle said to <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-coal-miners-black-lung_n_5e862723c5b6a949183323d7" target="_blank">HuffPost</a>. "Until their co-workers start falling ill, I don't think they're going to change. A lot of people here are not convinced they need to do anything."</p>
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Sen. Joe Manchin and United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts held a press conference on Oct. 3, 2017. Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call
After weeks of discord over the potential appointment, Sen. Joe Manchin, the pro-coal Democrat of West Virginia, was named the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Sen. Chuck Schumer announced Tuesday.
Many Democrats and environmental groups were adamantly opposed to Manchin serving as the top Democrat on the committee that oversees policies on climate change, public lands and fossil fuel production.
<p>
<span></span>Following the nod, Manchin said in an <a href="https://www.manchin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/manchin-announced-as-ranking-member-on-senate-energy-committee" target="_blank">online statement</a> he will work with "both sides of the aisle to find common sense solutions for long-term comprehensive energy policy that incorporates an all-of-the-above strategy and ensures our state and our nation are leaders in the energy future."
</p><p>
Manchin is a rare Democratic lawmaker in deep-red West Virginia, but he has consistently supported the state's coal miners. West Virginia is the nation's second-leading producer of coal. He slammed President Obama's "<a href="https://www.manchin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/manchin-slams-obamas-war-on-coal-and-economy" target="_blank">war on coal</a>" and <a href="https://www.manchin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/manchin-statement-on-presidents-decision-to-leave-the-paris-climate-agreement" target="_blank">supported</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/trump">President Trump</a>'s controversial decision to withdraw from the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement">Paris agreement</a>. The <a href="http://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/joe-manchin-iii" target="_blank">League of Conservation Voters</a> gave him a paltry lifetime score of 45 percent for his environmental voting record.
</p><p>
"Appointing Senator Manchin as ranking member of the Energy Committee is completely at odds with any plan for real climate action," <a href="http://350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a> executive director May Boeve said in a provided statement. "Manchin has taken every opportunity to put Big Oil before the health and safety of communities and our climate."
</p><p>
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who is a champion of strong climate action and is a potential 2020 presidential candidate, <a href="https://twitter.com/JayInslee/status/1070083790020653056" target="_blank">tweeted</a> last week: "Our party must be wholly committed to ending America's dependence on fossil fuels. Manchin literally shot climate legislation in one of his campaign ads."
</p><p>
In a 2010 television commercial, Manchin bragged about suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and shot a copy of the Democrats' cap-and-trade bill.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5c35acd38d7138710e122480ba94d6b3"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xIJORBRpOPM?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Dead Aim - Joe Manchin for West Virginia TV Ad</small>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIJORBRpOPM" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
</small>
</p><p>
David Turnbull, the strategic communications director with <a href="http://oilchangeusa.org/" target="_blank">Oil Change USA</a>, said in an <a href="http://oilchangeusa.org/oil-change-usa-response-to-manchin-as-dem-ranking-member-on-senate-energy-committee/" target="_blank">online statement</a> that Manchin has "enjoyed nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from oil, gas and coal interests in his career."
</p><p>
"If Senator Manchin wants to be taken seriously as someone serious about taking the critical step to move our economy off of fossil fuels, and not someone beholden to the fossil fuel industry, he should take the <a href="http://nofossilfuelmoney.org/" target="_blank">No Fossil Fuel Money</a> pledge, today," Turnbull added. "It only makes sense that he promise to reject money from the industry being regulated by the committee he'll lead for the Democrats. Until he does, we'll know who he truly answers to."
</p><p>
<span></span>Tuesday's appointment was not a total surprise. The former West Virginia governor has been a member of the committee since he was elected to the Senate in 2010. He is also the ranking chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy.
</p><p>
<span></span>Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive upstart of New York who is leading efforts of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/green-new-deal" target="_self">Green New Deal</a>, expressed concerns about Manchin taking the position.
</p><p>"I have concerns over the senator's chairmanship just because I do not believe that we should be financed by the industries that we are supposed to be legislating and regulating and touching with our legislation," Ocasio-Cortez said at press conference held outside the Capitol last month, according to <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/11/30/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-leads-opposition-to-coal-puppet-joe-manchin-for-top-senate-energy-slot/" target="_blank">The Intercept</a>.<br></p><p>
But last week, Manchin surprisingly <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/mcnamee-climate-denier-ferc-2622689454.html" target="_self">voted against Bernard McNamee</a>, a fossil fuel lawyer that President Trump named to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Senator withdrew his support due to his concerns about McNamee's stance on climate change. McNamee was ultimately confirmed in a straight party-line vote.
</p><p>
"Climate change is real, humans have made a significant impact, and we have the responsibility and capability to address it urgently," Manchin said in a statement posted on <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/419952-senate-advances-trump-energy-pick-after-manchin-flips" target="_blank">The Hill</a> after changing his mind about McNamee.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="98d25" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4XWPHM1576683778"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1072642258573410312" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">1,000+ Youth Activists Storm Capitol to Demand #GreenNewDeal https://t.co/WrKxoEiG34 @350 @billmckibben @sunrisemvmt</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/1072642258573410312">1544572817.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
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Court Orders Atlantic Coast Pipeline Work Stoppage Over Impact on Endangered Species
11 December 2018
Energy
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would cross the Greenbrier River in West Virginia. West Virginia Rivers Coalition / YouTube screenshot
Work on the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would carry fracked natural gas along a 600 mile route through West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, has been halted by court order and may not resume for several months, The News & Observer reported Monday.
A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia ruled on Friday that work must stop on the pipeline until March, when courts are set to review federal permits that allow the pipeline to operate in the habitat of four endangered species, which wildlife advocates say were rushed.
<p>"When we said we won't stop fighting this dirty, dangerous, unnecessary pipeline, we meant it. Every day that this pipeline isn't operating is a day that it's not hurting our health, water, climate and communities," <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/home" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a> Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign director Kelly Martin <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2018/12/atlantic-coast-pipeline-halts-all-construction" target="_blank">said in a statement</a>.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="4b7e3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="W6OD301576662506"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1071175719533862912" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">BREAKING: Fracked gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline Halts All Construction.
“This latest setback casts serious doubts on… https://t.co/LUuM75AGJB</div> — Sierra Club (@Sierra Club)<a href="https://twitter.com/SierraClub/statuses/1071175719533862912">1544223167.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>The Sierra Club has joined with other environmental groups including the <a href="http://www.vawilderness.org/" target="_blank">Virginia Wilderness Committee</a> to sue to stop the pipeline through the <a href="https://www.southernenvironment.org/" target="_blank">Southern Environmental Law Center</a> (SELC). A case brought by these groups led the courts to vacate <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/second-controversial-fracked-gas-pipeline-runs-into-legal-trouble-2593893066.html" target="_self">two key permits for the project in August</a>. But work resumed when federal agencies issued <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/atlantic-coast-pipeline-construction-2606259760.html" target="_self">revised permits in September</a>. It is the revised permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond has once again put on hold until a full legal challenge can be considered.</p><p>"The Fish and Wildlife Service scrambled to reissue this permit and its haste is evident in its analysis," SELC attorney Patrick Hunter told <a href="http://www.wfae.org/post/atlantic-coast-pipeline-work-halted-after-court-stays-key-permit#stream/0" target="_blank">WFAE</a>. "This is yet another instance of government agencies rushing out ill-considered permits for this project."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="16991" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7IP6GB1576662506"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1071163315039162370" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Breaking news: Atlantic Coast Pipeline construction halted after court determines U.S. Fish and Wildlife permit is… https://t.co/sG2tBVe99w</div> — SELC (Environmental Law) (@SELC (Environmental Law))<a href="https://twitter.com/selc_org/statuses/1071163315039162370">1544220210.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>Dominion Energy, which is building the pipeline with Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and the Southern Company, announced Friday it was stopping construction.<br></p><p>"Dominion Energy, on behalf of Atlantic and itself, has stopped construction on the entire project, except for stand-down activities needed for safety and that are necessary to prevent detriment to the environment," it wrote in a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reported by WFAE.</p><p>However, the pipeline's builders are also challenging the work stoppage, arguing that the habitat of the species in question only covers 100 miles of the route in Virginia and West Virginia, and that they should be able to continue construction in other areas. </p><p>Here are the species at the heart of the dispute, and how pipeline construction could impact them, according to The News & Observer.</p><p><strong>1. Indiana Bat</strong></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODk5MzA0MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzOTkzODU0Mn0.qUa2Ymb1hHYOzCjAAJ6eUiaEWAk_HUnh_rAtX0H2XKU/img.jpg?width=980" id="b39db" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="135b445031c0b7a97650f3d53870642a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">An Indiana bat</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Andrew King, USFWS</small></p><p>The Indiana bat lives along most of the pipeline's route in Virginia and West Virginia. The clearing of trees for the pipeline would compel pregnant female bats to change their flight patterns and make them more vulnerable to predators.<br></p><p><strong>2. Clubshell Mussel</strong></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODk5MzA0My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMTAzODQ5NH0.8r-83IvsteGTZWrMG1XsCKdqbfeuzkb-_DLVEDNX7c0/img.jpg?width=980" id="b7bdd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1163311879a3f3295f20ad7949ee8323" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Clubshell mussels </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">USFWS</small></p><p>This freshwater mussel could be buried alive by the dredging and grading required to build the pipeline.</p><p><strong>3. Madison Cave Isopod</strong></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODk5MzA0NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNjgwMjU3N30.o5aBXF7N7GV8PUG-TBRlQTluOtjH4pzRL_IwoN0YEVo/img.jpg?width=980" id="b1558" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3584ce72c270fab869594313b2778d74" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A Madison cave isopod </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">USFWS Northeast Region / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en" target="_blank">CC BY 2.0</a></small></p><p>A type of freshwater crustacean, this tiny isopod could be crushed or trapped by digging or blasting by the pipeline builders.<br></p><p><strong>4. Rusty-Patched Bumblebee</strong></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODk5MzA0NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyODQyMzQyMn0.1aPb2XKmNlEoi_MBJlpIhuHdEBAarb8L5wo542DH1cw/img.jpg?width=980" id="f5e6a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7a40c465a2c092dffe9f118723723280" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A rusty-patched bumblebee</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Kim Mitchell, USFWS</small></p><p>The rusty patched bumblebee could be hurt or killed by falling of trees cleared to make way for the pipeline.</p><p>.</p>
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Invasive Tick Spreads to Ninth State, CDC Warns of 'New and Emerging Disease Threat'
30 November 2018
Health + Wellness
The Asian longhorned tick has been found in nine states. CDC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned of a "multistate infestation" with the Asian longhorned tick—the first new tick species to enter the U.S. in 50 years.
New Jersey was the first state to report the Haemaphysalis longicornis on a sheep in August 2017. Since then, it has been found in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, according to Friday's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
<p>
"The presence of H. longicornis in the United States represents a new and emerging disease threat," the report said.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODk0MDczMS9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzczMTgxMn0.VdaMclBlBZ9O4N6aFOr-MhO0zCvFzLsygyuOIgZZXWM/img.gif?width=980" id="bca2a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5443d60b6c91674d510bb1e8301cc95a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">The ticks were reported from 45 counties in nine states from August 2017 to September 2018.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">CDC</small>
</p><p>
As
<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/asian-long-horned-tick-spreads-2593977156.html" target="_self">EcoWatch previously mentioned</a>, in Asia the species carries a disease that kills 15 percent of those infected, but no human diseases have been linked to the species in the U.S. since it was first found in New Jersey.
</p><p>
The CDC is currently working with public health, agricultural and academic experts to understand the possible threat posed by the insect.
</p><p>
"The full public health and agricultural impact of this tick discovery and spread is unknown," said Ben Beard, Ph.D., deputy director of CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases in a
<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p1129-tick-spreading-widely.html" target="_blank">press release</a>. "In other parts of the world, the Asian longhorned tick can transmit many types of pathogens common in the United States. We are concerned that this tick, which can cause massive infestations on animals, on people, and in the environment, is spreading in the United States."
</p><p>
<span></span><a href="https://www.livescience.com/64198-longhorned-tick-spreading-us.html" target="_blank">LiveScience</a> further reported:<br>
</p><blockquote>
<span></span>"In other parts of the world, longhorned ticks are known to spread diseases, including the bacterial infections <a href="https://www.livescience.com/14763-babesiosis-tick-disease-rising.html" target="_blank">babesiosis</a>, ehrlichiosis, theileriosis and rickettsiosis, as well as certain viral diseases. In China and Japan, the longhorned tick transmits a disease called severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), which can be deadly."
</blockquote><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="3f186" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9UDOVH1576662467"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1068525061718437888" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The Asian longhorned tick is new to the United States and has the potential to spread germs. People should take ste… https://t.co/P34DHHTsTa</div> — Dr. Robert R. Redfield (@Dr. Robert R. Redfield)<a href="https://twitter.com/CDCDirector/statuses/1068525061718437888">1543591201.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>
Unlike most tick species, a single female Asian longhorned tick can reproduce offspring without mating and lay up to 2,000 eggs at a time.
</p><p>
This means hundreds to thousands of ticks can be found on a single animal, person or in the environment, the CDC said.
</p><p>
Earlier this month, the CDC
<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/data-summary/index.html" target="_blank">reported</a> that in 2017, state and local health departments reported a record number of tickborne illnesses like Lyme disease.
</p><p>
"Tick-borne diseases like Lyme hit an all-time high this year, just as a new tick capable of spreading disease rears its ugly head," Connecticut U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal
<a href="https://twitter.com/SenBlumenthal/status/1068537694064713728" target="_blank">tweeted</a> Friday in reaction to the report. "It's clear, urgent federal action is needed to fight the debilitating & growing public health threat of tick-borne diseases."
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="d3f4c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="KL71J51576662467"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1068537694064713728" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Tick-borne diseases like Lyme hit an all-time high this year, just as a new tick capable of spreading disease rears… https://t.co/U536hH5A5d</div> — Richard Blumenthal (@Richard Blumenthal)<a href="https://twitter.com/SenBlumenthal/statuses/1068537694064713728">1543594213.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>
You can protect yourself from tick-borne diseases by using
<a href="https://www.epa.gov/insect-repellents" target="_blank">insect repellents</a>, wearing protective gear and clothing, checking your body and clothing for ticks after returning from potentially tick-infested areas and showering soon after being outdoors, the CDC advises.
</p><p>
The CDC also advised livestock producers and pet owners to work with their veterinarians to maintain regular tick prevention and report any unknown tick species to their local department of agriculture.
</p><p>
<span></span>Here's the agency's advice on what you should do if you think you have found an Asian longhorned tick:
</p><ul class="ee-ul">
<li><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/removing_a_tick.html" target="_blank">Remove</a> any tick from people and animals as quickly as possible.</li>
<li>Save the ticks in rubbing alcohol in a jar or a ziplock bag, then:
<ul class="ee-ul">
<li>Contact your <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/stltpublichealth/healthdirectories/healthdepartments.html" target="_blank">health department</a> about steps you can take to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/avoid/on_people.html" target="_blank">prevent tick bites</a> and tickborne diseases.</li>
<li>Contact a veterinarian for information about how to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/avoid/on_pets.html" target="_blank">protect pets</a> from ticks and tick bites.</li>
<li>Contact your state agriculture department or local agricultural extension office about ticks on livestock or for tick identification.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODk0MDc2NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTQwMzM0OX0.PXR_-0X_EF3N79iKtuA5bXNhANmG2ivT4oBnX8vR51Y/img.jpg?width=980" id="0cdca" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="425c36faf207283b605c06b4925cdb28" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Longhorned tick. Nymph and adult female, underside</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">CDC</small>
</p>
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Why Plans to Turn America’s Rust Belt Into a New Plastics Belt Are Bad News for the Climate
29 October 2018
Climate
Smoke billows from one of many petrochemical plants in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" on Oct. 12, 2013. Giles Clarke / Getty Images
By Sharon Kelly
The petrochemical industry anticipates spending a total of over $200 billion on factories, pipelines, and other infrastructure in the U.S. that will rely on shale gas, the American Chemistry Council announced in September. Construction is already underway at many sites.
This building spree would dramatically expand the Gulf Coast's petrochemical corridor (known locally as "Cancer Alley")—and establish a new plastics and petrochemical belt across states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
<p>If those projects are completed, analysts predict the <span style="background-color: initial;">U.S.</span> would flip from one of the world's highest-cost producers of <a href="http://www.plasticsindustry.org/sites/plastics.dev/files/PLASTICS%20Size%20&%20Impact%20-%20Summary.pdf" target="_blank">plastics</a> and <a href="https://www.americanchemistry.com/Policy/Energy/Shale-Gas/Infographic-Shale-Gas-and-New-US-Chemical-Industry-Investment.pdf" target="_blank">chemicals</a> to one of the cheapest, using raw materials and energy from fracked gas wells in states like Texas, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.</p><p>Those petrochemical plans could have profound consequences for a planet already showing signs of dangerous warming and a cascade of other impacts from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>.</p><p>The gathering wave of construction comes as the Trump administration works to deregulate American industry and roll back pollution controls, putting the U.S. at odds with the rest of the world's efforts to slow climate change.</p><p>Trump <a href="http://climateanalytics.org/briefings/ratification-tracker.html" target="_blank">announced</a> in June 2017 that the U.S. had halted all implementation of the 2015 <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement">Paris agreement</a> and intends to fully withdraw. America is now the world's only state refusing <a href="http://climateanalytics.org/briefings/ratification-tracker.html" target="_blank">participation</a> in the global agreement to curb climate change (after Syria, the final holdout, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/syria-is-joining-the-paris-agreement-now-what/545261/" target="_blank">signed</a> in November 2017).</p><p>This petrochemical industry expansion—much of it funded by foreign investors—makes America's refusal to participate in the Paris agreement all the more significant, because much of this new U.S. infrastructure would be built outside of the greenhouse gas agreement affecting the rest of the globe.</p><p>If American policy makers approve this wave of new plastics and petrochemical plants with little regard to curbing climate change and reducing <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuel </a>use, environmentalists warn, they'll be greenlighting hundreds of billions of dollars of investment into projects at risk of becoming stranded assets.</p><p><strong>From Rust Belt to Plastics Belt</strong></p><p>Some of the largest and most expensive petrochemical projects in the U.S. are planned in the Rust Belt states of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York, a region that has suffered for decades from the collapse of the domestic steel industry but that has <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/07/01/state-regulators-struggle-keep-industry-pushes-multi-billion-dollar-fracked-petrochemical-projects" target="_blank">relatively little experience</a> with the kind of petrochemical complexes that are now primarily found on the Gulf Coast.</p><p>In November 2017, the China Energy Investment Corp., signed a Memorandum of Understanding with West Virginia that would result in the construction of $83.7 billion in plastics and petrochemicals projects over the next 20 years in that state alone—a huge slice of the $202.4 billion U.S. total. Those plans have <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/06/25/west-virginia-petrochemical-hub-china-trade-war-corruption-thrasher" target="_blank">run into snags</a> due to trade disputes between the U.S. and China and a corruption probe, though <a href="http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/115573-chinese-companies-said-still-honoring-us-agreements-despite-trade-war" target="_blank">Chinese officials said</a> in late August that investment was moving forward.</p><p>The petrochemical industry's interest is spurred by the fact that the region's Marcellus and Utica shales contain significant supplies of so-called "wet gas." This wet gas often is treated as a footnote in discussions of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fracking/">fracking</a>, which tend to focus on the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane">methane</a> gas, called "dry gas" by industry—and not the ethane, propane, butane and other hydrocarbons that also come from those same wells.</p><p>Those "wet" fossil fuels and chemical feedstocks are commonly referred to as "natural gas liquids," or NGLs, because they are delivered to customers condensed into a liquid form—like the liquid butane trapped in a Bic lighter, which expands into a stream of flammable gas when you flick that lighter on.</p><p>Ethane can represent a surprising amount of the fossil fuel from a fracked shale well, particularly in the Marcellus. For every 6,000 cubic feet of methane (the energy equivalent of the industry's standard 42 gallon barrel of oil), Marcellus wet gas wells can produce up to roughly 35 gallons of ethane, based on data <a href="https://www.aogr.com/magazine/cover-story/infrastructure-projects-connect-marcellus-shale-to-ethane-ngl-markets" target="_blank">reported by the American Oil and Gas Reporter</a> in 2011.</p><p>And U.S. ethane production is projected to grow dramatically. By 2022, the region will produce roughly 800,000 barrels of ethane per day, up from 470,000 barrels a day in 2017, <a href="https://marcellusdrilling.com/2017/10/poor-prospects-for-moving-marcellusutica-ethane-to-gulf-coast/" target="_blank">according to energy consultant RBN Energy</a>.</p><p>That supply glut is driving down ethane prices in the Rust Belt.</p><p>"The lowest price ethane on the planet is here in this region," Brian Anderson, director of the West Virginia University Energy Institute, told the NEP Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction conference in Pittsburgh in June.</p><p><strong>Chemicals and the Climate</strong></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODc3ODY0NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTY3NjAwNH0.y5mLvv-mjYCjyZUluo_T0pjHSVLuzF12N37OVqZLQg4/img.jpg?width=980" id="ac72e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1867c0cf009fc3d02dfb8043dd294287" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Image projected onto Houston petrochemical plant during the Houston Toxic Tour, 2017.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit..."><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/backbone_campaign/" target="_blank">Backbone Campaign</a>, CC BY 2.0</small></p><p>The petrochemical and plastics industries are <a href="http://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2017/9/29/fueling-plastics-new-research-details-fossil-fuel-role-in-plastics-proliferation" target="_blank">notoriously polluting</a>, not only when it comes to toxic <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution">air pollution</a> and plastic waste, but also because of the industry's significant greenhouse gas footprint—affecting not only the U.S., but the entire world.<br></p><p>"The chemical and petrochemical sector is by far the largest industrial energy user, accounting for roughly 10 percent of total worldwide final energy demand and 7 percent of global [greenhouse gas] emissions," the International Energy Agency reported in 2013. Since then the numbers have <a href="https://6fefcbb86e61af1b2fc4-c70d8ead6ced550b4d987d7c03fcdd1d.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/cms/reports/documents/000/002/683/original/CDP_Chemicals_2017.pdf?1507139412" target="_blank">crept up</a>, with the IEA finding petrochemicals responsible for an additional percentage point of the world's total energy consumption in <a href="https://6fefcbb86e61af1b2fc4-c70d8ead6ced550b4d987d7c03fcdd1d.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/cms/reports/documents/000/002/683/original/CDP_Chemicals_2017.pdf?1507139412" target="_blank">2017</a>.</p><p>Carbon emissions from petrochemical and plastics manufacturing are expected to grow 20 percent by 2030 (in other words, in just over a decade), the IEA concluded in a <a href="https://webstore.iea.org/download/direct/2310?fileName=The_Future_of_Petrochemicals.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> released Oct. 5. A few days later, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html" target="_blank">warned</a> that by 2030, the world needs to have reduced its greenhouse gas pollution 45 percent from 2010 levels, in order to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to a less-catastrophic 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).</p><p>The petrochemicals industry has so far drawn relatively little attention from oil and gas analysts and policy makers. "Petrochemicals are one of the key blind spots in the global energy debate, especially given the influence they will exert on future energy trends," Dr. Fatih Birol, the IEA's executive director, <a href="https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2018/october/petrochemicals-set-to-be-the-largest-driver-of-world-oil-demand-latest-iea-analy.html" target="_blank">said in a statement</a> this month.</p><p>"In fact," he added, "our analysis shows they will have a greater influence on the future of oil demand than cars, trucks and aviation."</p><p>The new investments, which will rely on decades of continued fracking in the U.S, offer the oil and gas industry a serious hedge against competition from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">renewable energy</a>, even in the event that climate policies push fossil fuel energy to the margins.</p><p>"Unlike refining, and ultimately unlike oil, which will see a moment when the growth will stop, we actually don't anticipate that with petrochemicals," Andrew Brown, upstream director for Royal Dutch Shell, <a href="https://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/As-gasoline-demand-wanes-oil-industry-looks-to-12741377.php" target="_blank">told the San Antonio Express News in March</a>.</p><p>The planned infrastructure could also help bail out the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/finances-fracking-shale-industry-drills-more-debt-profit" target="_blank">heavily indebted</a> shale drilling industry financially by consuming vast amounts of fossil fuels, both for power and as a raw material.</p><p>The American Chemistry Council has <a href="https://www.americanchemistry.com/Media/PressReleasesTranscripts/ACC-news-releases/US-Chemical-Industry-Investment-Linked-to-Shale-Gas-Reaches-200-Billion.html" target="_blank">linked</a> 333 chemical industry projects, all announced since 2010, to shale gas—that is, gas that is produced using fracking. Forty-one percent of those projects are still in the planning phase as of September, according to the council, and 68 percent of the projects are linked to foreign investment.</p><p>State regulators in Texas and Louisiana have already issued permits that would allow a group of 74 petrochemical and liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects along the Gulf Coast to add 134 million tons of greenhouse gases a year to the atmosphere, an <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/09/27/texas-louisiana-new-petrochemical-oil-gas-projects-climate-change-29-coal-power" target="_blank">Environmental Integrity Project analysis found</a> in September. The group said that was equal to the pollution from running 29 new <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> power plants around the clock.</p><p>The expansion of plastics manufacturing in America also has environmentalists worried over a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/19/plastic-pollution-risks-near-permanent-contamination-of-natural-environment" target="_blank">plastics pollution crisis</a>. "We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realizing we should use far less of it," Carroll Muffett, president of the <span style="background-color: initial;">U.S.</span> Center for International Environmental Law, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/26/180bn-investment-in-plastic-factories-feeds-global-packaging-binge" target="_blank">told The Guardian in December 2017</a>.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODc3ODY1Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMTM5MzAxNn0.X8YtlBG8jx4JT4CQUQSo4px5hCaTCKckHBZMG-Du0w4/img.png?width=980" id="59935" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5d5f32decba6bf0c974c749636e944a2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">This story is part of <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-plastics" target="_blank">Fracking for Plastics</a>, a DeSmog investigation into the proposed petrochemical build-out in the Rust Belt and the major players involved.</small></p><p><strong>Petrochemical Paradox</strong><br></p><p>The petrochemical industry transforms ethane and other raw material into a huge range of products, including not only plastic, but also vinyl, fertilizers, Styrofoam, beauty products, chemicals and pesticides.</p><p>The petrochemicals industry itself straddles an uncomfortable fence when it comes to renewable energy and climate change. A significant portion of its revenue comes from "clean" technology sectors, as it provides materials used to make batteries and electric cars.</p><p><a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/article/despite-innovation-chemicals-sector-slow-paris-goals" target="_blank">One report</a> last year concluded that roughly 20 percent of the industry's revenue comes from products designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the American Chemistry Council cited the industry's role supplying "materials and technologies that improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions," as it <a href="https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i23/Scientific-groups-disappointed-Trump-move-on-climate.html" target="_blank">opposed Trump's decision</a> to drop out of the Paris agreement.</p><p>But petrochemical manufacturers are also heavily reliant on fossil fuels. They need them to power and supply a dreamed-of "manufacturing renaissance," as the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/exxon">ExxonMobil</a>-funded <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="_blank">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a> explained as it <a href="https://cei.org/blog/5-advantages-stepping-away-paris-climate-treaty" target="_blank">pushed</a> for Trump to abandon the Paris agreement.</p><p>Plans to use American shale gas would also link petrochemicals to the expansion of fracking, which carries its own environmental concerns. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's landmark study on fracking and drinking water <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/fracking-can-harm-drinking-water-in-some-circumstances-epa-says/?utm_term=.3c06d4173d93" target="_blank">concluded</a> in 2016 that fracking has led to water contamination and poses continued risks to American water supplies.</p><p>In addition, though conversations about climate change usually focus on carbon emissions, the gas industry has <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/nasa-study-fracking-global-warming-0fa0c5b5f5c7/" target="_blank">such a bad methane leak problem</a> that using natural gas <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/methane-leaks-erase-climate-benefit-of-fracked-gas-countless-studies-find-8b060b2b395d/" target="_blank">can be even worse</a> for the climate than burning coal.</p><p><strong>Pittsburgh and Paris</strong></p><p>Climate implications make a petrochemical build-out risky, not only from an environmental perspective, but also from a fiscal perspective, Mark Dixon, co-founder of<a href="https://nopetropa.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"> NoPetroPA</a>, which opposes fracking-based petrochemicals projects, told DeSmog.</p><p>One plant, Shell's $6 billion ethane "cracker" plant currently under construction in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, has permits to pump 2.25 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year into the air near Pittsburgh, roughly equal to the annual carbon pollution from 430,000 cars.</p><p>Industry advocates say the region can produce enough ethane to support up to <a href="https://marcellusdrilling.com/2018/03/m-u-could-support-8-crackers-why-dont-companies-build-more/" target="_blank">seven more ethane cracker plants</a> like Shell's.</p><p><span></span><span style="background-color: initial;">"</span>We're trying to drop our emissions 50 percent by 2030," Dixon said, referring to Pittsburgh's <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/01/pittsburgh-fires-back-trump-paris-agreement" target="_blank">highly touted plans</a> to comply with international climate targets despite the federal government's withdrawal from the Paris agreement. "The Shell cracker alone will decimate that."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODc3ODY1Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwODE1MTI5NH0.cvpiWX_zV38QrMc4T5pnQ6FcQ0JRIU4amYFQBrx3J-4/img.jpg?width=980" id="d701a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9f8bb4a7e0fcc01464402dcd3f28e71d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A kayaker protests against Shell's cracker project outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in June 2018.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit..."><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/9602574@N02/" target="_blank">Mark Dixon</a>, CC BY 2.0</small></p><p><strong>Stranding Assets</strong><br></p><p>International negotiators <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-accord/good-progress-at-bangkok-climate-talks-on-draft-paris-accord-rules-u-n-official-idUSKCN1LP0DN" target="_blank">met in Bangkok</a> in September to hash out details on how the Paris agreement will be implemented. The U.S., which participated in talks despite the Trump administration's intention to withdraw from the accord, faced <a href="https://www.firstpost.com/world/developing-countries-accuse-us-allies-of-stalling-progress-on-paris-accord-as-emergency-un-climate-talks-wrap-up-5150381.html" target="_blank">criticism</a> over working to <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/climate-negotiations-struggling-to-make-real-progress-ahead-of-poland-talks_us_5b96d740e4b0162f47300fa4" target="_blank">delay clarity</a> over the agreement's financing (nonetheless, a top UN negotiator <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-accord/good-progress-at-bangkok-climate-talks-on-draft-paris-accord-rules-u-n-official-idUSKCN1LP0DN" target="_blank">praised</a> "good progress" from the talks).</p><p>While the Paris agreement is not directly binding, globally there has been <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-06-tariffs-paris-climate-commitments.html" target="_blank">discussion</a> of using trade agreements and tariffs to pressure countries that fail to keep up with their carbon-cutting commitments.</p><p>In February, the European Union (EU) <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/eu-trade-deal-paris-climate-change-accord-agreement-cecilia-malmstr-m-a8206806.html" target="_blank">declared</a> that it will not sign new trade agreements with any country that refuses to get on board with the Paris agreement.</p><p>"One of our main demands is that any country who signs a trade agreement with EU should implement the Paris agreement on the ground," France's foreign affairs minister <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2018/02/08/eu-tells-trump-no-paris-climate-deal-no-free-trade/#363586e437c7" target="_blank">Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne told the French Parliament</a>. "No Paris agreement, no trade agreement."</p><p>"They're already shooting across the bow, saying look, you've got to implement the Paris climate agreement," Dixon told DeSmog. "We could very well spend 10 years building an infrastructure to support fracking all over the region, crackers, ethane, plastics, everything, then have Europe say, 'sorry, you can't do that. You have to shut it down.'"</p><p>In other words, whether or not the U.S. puts its signature on the climate pact's dotted line, the pressure from trading partners to reduce greenhouse gas pollution—and the underlying concerns about the rapidly warming climate—could remain the same.</p><p>That said, while the U.S. is the only country to reject Paris on paper, it is far from the only country on track to miss its targets aimed at warding off catastrophic climate change. Only Morocco and The Gambia are projected to hit "Paris Agreement Compatible" targets, according to the <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/" target="_blank">Climate Action Tracker</a> (whose rating tracker includes many major polluters but not all countries worldwide).</p><p>The EU itself currently earns a rating of "insufficient" from the group (China is ranked "highly insufficient," while the U.S. and four other nations earned the worst "critically insufficient" grade).</p><p><strong>Closing Windows</strong></p><p>The next several years will determine the future of petrochemical production for decades to come, crucial years when it comes to the fate of the climate, if industry gets its timing right—particularly in the Rust Belt.</p><p>"The window to make this all work is not forever," Charles Schliebs of Stone Pier Capital Advisors told the NEP Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction conference in June. "It's maybe two to five years."</p><p>That means key decisions may be made while <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/donald-trump" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a> remains in office—though state and local regulators will also face important calls over permits and construction planning.</p><p>For some living near the center of the planned petrochemical expansion, the problem is readily apparent.</p><p>"We're not going to be able to double down on fossil fuels," Dixon said, "and comply with the Paris climate agreement."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="acc2a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="FKE34F1576663323"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="992156876497448960" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The Link Between Fossil Fuels, Single-Use Plastics and Climate Change https://t.co/dNvbx9e4r9 @PlasticPollutes @GreenNewsDaily</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/992156876497448960">1525383607.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p><em>Follow the DeSmog investigative series, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-plastics" target="_blank">Fracking for Plastics</a>, and get your questions answered with the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/21/field-guide-petrochemical-and-plastics-industry" target="_blank">Field Guide to the Petrochemical and Plastics Industry</a>.</em><br></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/28/petrochemical-industry-america-rust-belt-plastics-fracking-climate" target="_blank">DeSmogBlog</a>.</em></p>
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Construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Appalachian Trail Conservancy screenshot
By Courtney Lindwall
Communities along the 300-mile proposed route for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) heard some good news this week. On Tuesday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously voted to vacate a permit required by the Clean Water Act, which was previously issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The ruling stated the Army Corps lacked the authority to substitute one type of construction for another for the natural gas pipeline, which would crisscross rivers and other sensitive aquatic ecosystems hundreds of times between northern West Virginia and southern Virginia.
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="608d867c35e4e1ffe7025a29dcbf103a"><div class="fb-video" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/nrdc.org/videos/10156166532779454/" data-allowfullscreen="true"></div></div>
<p>The case—brought by the <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a>, the <a href="http://wvrivers.org/" target="_blank">West Virginia Rivers Coalition</a>, and other citizen organizations—does not kill the project outright, but it is a significant roadblock.<br></p><p>MVP is <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/controversial-new-pipelines-may-slice-through-southeast" target="_blank">one of two</a> pipelines (the other is the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/atlantic-coast-pipeline">Atlantic Coast Pipeline</a>) that have drummed up <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/virginians-fly-flags-resistance-fight-against-two-pipelines" target="_blank">fierce public backlash</a> across the region. Concerned residents have been peacefully protesting the projects for months, sometimes among the trees they would be helping to save.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="4e0e7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="G0N0P81576662507"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1047199355592232961" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Day 28 and we're #stillhere ... this picture was taken a couple days ago and is of Nettle watching loggers hike pas… https://t.co/IIK0JzkNpD</div> — Appalachians Against Pipelines (@Appalachians Against Pipelines)<a href="https://twitter.com/stopthemvp/statuses/1047199355592232961">1538506757.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/6-ways-mountain-valley-and-atlantic-coast-pipelines-would-be-bad-virginia" target="_blank">hastily approved</a> both pipelines <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/ferc-commissioner-dissents-33ed185fed9d/" target="_blank">late last year</a>, ignoring the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/threats-to-water-quality-from-mountain-valley-pipeline-and-atlantic-coast-pipeline-water-crossings-in-virginia_2018-02-26.pdf" target="_blank">serious risks</a> a spill would pose to the region's watersheds, such as the Chesapeake Bay. Between the two projects, more than <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/6-ways-mountain-valley-and-atlantic-coast-pipelines-would-be-bad-virginia" target="_blank">315 acres of critical wetlands</a> are at stake, many of which drain into Virginia's Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The extra sediment that construction would kick up would also harm fish and other aquatic life.<br></p><p>Tuesday's decision isn't the first time the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has <a href="https://www.virginiamercury.com/2018/08/06/fourth-circuit-strikes-again-atlantic-coast-pipeline-permit-vacated/" target="_blank">pushed back</a> against the Trump administration's <a href="https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/wv_troubled_transition/regulators-change-the-rules-to-ease-pipeline-approval/article_34473938-91e4-556e-bc36-12ecb4a1fb4e.html" target="_blank">fast-track approval process</a> for environmentally questionable projects. It also <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/win-court-pulls-key-permit-massive-and-dirty-atlantic-coast-pipeline" target="_blank">pulled a key permit</a> for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in May after finding that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to set clear and adequate limits on its threats to the environment and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species">endangered species</a>.</p><p>The court will soon issue an opinion to more thoroughly explain its decision, but the pipeline builders are already saying they're looking for a workaround. So Virginians, keep fighting the good fight, and call on your governor, <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amy-mall/northam-must-act-protect-clean-water-pipeline-threats" target="_blank">Ralph Northam</a>, to block the pipeline once and for all.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="a29ed" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="35TM7C1576662508"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="988534265657876480" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">With Treetop Protest, 61-Year-Old Red Terry Leads Fight Against Mountain Valley Pipeline https://t.co/kvIkoZQL7k… https://t.co/BVNFojO1fv</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/988534265657876480">1524519909.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
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Nixon Ridge pipeline explosion. Marshall County Homeland Security & Emergency Management / Facebook
A newly installed TransCanada natural gas pipeline exploded early Thursday in the remote Nixon Ridge area of Marshall County in West Virginia.
<p style="">No injuries were reported but flames and smoke from the blast could be seen as far as
<a href="https://twitter.com/TDiTirroWTRF/status/1004707717498441733" target="_blank">20 miles away</a>, residents told local media. Area police told
<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gas-pipeline-explosion-rocks-moundsville-area-northern-west-virginia-sends-flames-high-in-air/" target="_blank">CBS News</a> the fire was "very large—if you can see it from your house, evacuate."
</p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="aa827c2ee23c5c300c72310daa4060d9"><div class="fb-video" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/ruby.mason.54/videos/1587635261364082/" data-allowfullscreen="true"></div></div><p style="">
"It sounded like a freight train coming through, or a tornado, and the sky lit up bright orange, and then I got up and looked out the window and flames were shooting I don't know how far into the sky," Tina Heath-Chaplin, of Moundsville, told
<a href="https://www.wpxi.com/news/top-stories/pipeline-explosion-sends-ball-of-fire-into-air-in-w-va-visible-from-washington-co/764708983" target="_blank">WPXI</a>.
</p><p style="">
<span></span>TransCanada—the same company behind the
<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/keystone" target="_blank">Keystone</a> pipeline—said the explosion has been contained and an investigation is underway.
</p><p>
"As soon as the issue was identified, emergency response procedures were enacted and the segment of impacted pipeline was isolated. The fire was fully extinguished by approximately 8:30 a.m," the company
<a href="https://www.transcanada.com/NR-Incident" target="_blank">commented</a> Thursday.
</p><p style="">
"The cause of this issue is not yet known," TransCanada continued. "The site of the incident has been secured and we are beginning the process of working with applicable regulators to investigate, including the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration."
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="f54db" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="H57OU91576662757"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1004728173500796928" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This is drone footage from @MarshallCoWVOEM Director Tom Hart says this is at the end of Nixon Ridge near Fish Cree… https://t.co/B3OJOM6A0Q</div> — Tessa DiTirro (@Tessa DiTirro)<a href="https://twitter.com/Local12Tessa/statuses/1004728173500796928">1528380838.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>
Robert Burrough, the director with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's Eastern Regional Office, told the
<a href="https://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2018/06/07/Pipeline-explosion-moundsville-west-virginia/stories/201806070129" target="_blank">Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</a> the affected line is likely TransCanada's $1.6 billion, 160-mile <a href="https://www.transcanada.com/en/announcements/2018-01-02leach-xpress-project-placed-into-service-mountaineer-xpress-gulf-xpress-receive-ferc-certificates/" target="_blank">Leach XPress pipeline</a>, which started service in January.
</p><p style="">
Russ Girling, TransCanada president and CEO
<a href="https://www.transcanada.com/en/announcements/2018-01-02leach-xpress-project-placed-into-service-mountaineer-xpress-gulf-xpress-receive-ferc-certificates/" target="_blank">said</a> at the line opening, "This is truly a best-in-class pipeline and we look forward to many years of safe, reliable, and efficient operation on behalf of our customers."
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="7b701" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="HD83EF1576662757"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="983334061342056448" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Keystone Pipeline Spilled 407K Gallons in South Dakota, Double Previous Estimate https://t.co/H1jwquWveg @EnvAm… https://t.co/jsOwQqDpRY</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/983334061342056448">1523280084.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
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'History Going in the Wrong Direction' as Worst Form of Black Lung Disease Rises Again
24 May 2018
Health + Wellness
Miners surface on the elevator at Virginia-Pocahontas Mine #4 near Richlands, VA in April 1974. Jack Corn / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
By Andrea Germanos
Spotlighting the terrible human impact of the nation's continued reliance on coal, new research shows the most severe form of black lung disease, progressive massive fibrosis (PMF), is on the rise—big time.
"This is history going in the wrong direction," said lead researcher Kirsten S. Almberg, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
<p>The findings are based on information from the U.S. Department of Labor, which has the data on former miners seeking benefits from the Federal Black Lung Program.</p><p>From when that program began in 1970 until 2016, 4,679 miners were determined to have PMF. Yet about half of those cases—2,318—were identified since 2000.</p><p>The overall trend was not a shock to the researchers, given that the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, using surveillance data of active coal miners, found a similar upward trend in 2014.</p><p>"We were, however, surprised by the magnitude of the problem and are astounded by the fact that this disease appears to be resurging despite modern dust control regulations," Almberg stated.</p><p>The largest increase of the miners with PMF was in central Appalachian states. Virginia experienced the greatest increase in percentage of PMF cases over the past four decades, surging from 0 to 12 percent in 2015. West Virginia came in second place, increasing from 0 percent in 1972 to 11 percent in 2016.</p><p>The new research was presented at the American Thoracic Society's International Conference, which ended Wednesday.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration, meanwhile, continues to try to <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/01/world-rejects-coal-trump-administration-continues-back-dying-industry#.WwXQORkh1z8" target="_blank">save</a> the dying industry and boast that it's "saving coal." Coal workers, however are not being saved. As Newsweek<em> </em><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2018/02/23/coal-miners-safety-health-trump-788576.html" target="_blank">reported</a> earlier this year, "The president has been quick to celebrate the 771 net workers that were hired in 2017, but the administration's push to support the dirtiest of fossil fuels has been accompanied by a surge in deaths of the workers who procure it. The 2017 death toll was the highest since 2014—when there were roughly 60,000 more miners at work in America."</p><p><a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-3-may-june/sorry-trump-coal-isnt-coming-back" target="_blank">According to </a>Michael Brune, executive director of the <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a>, "Whether coal will rebound or not (it won't) isn't the real issue. These are the questions we should be asking: What will replace it? And how will the transition affect the same coal-mining communities that received spurious promises from candidate Donald Trump that he could bring coal back from the brink? For the answers, we need only consider what most Americans agree on: Investing in clean, renewable energy makes more sense than going from one dirty fuel (coal) to another (gas)."</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="0eea2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="B344VE1576662786"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="967230115766775811" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">New Black Lung Epidemic Emerging in Coal Country https://t.co/iLotNusK4E @BeyondCoal @dirtyenergy</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/967230115766775811">1519440604.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/05/23/history-going-wrong-direction-worst-form-black-lung-disease-rises-again" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><br></p>
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With Treetop Protest, 61-Year-Old Red Terry Leads Fight Against Mountain Valley Pipeline
23 April 2018
Popular
By Michael Sainato
In Virginia and West Virginia, residents and activists are battling natural gas companies over a natural gas pipeline currently being constructed.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline will extend 303 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, with a recently proposed 70 mile extension into North Carolina. The project is being funded and operated by Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, owned by EQT Midstream Partners, LP; NextEra US Gas Assets, LLC; Con Edison Transmission, Inc.; WGL Midstream; and RGC Midstream, LLC.
<p>The pipeline will transport up to 2 billion cubic feet of fracked natural gas daily from the Marcellus and Utica <a href="http://marcelluscoalition.org/pa-map/" target="_blank">shale basins</a>, "to supply the growing need for natural gas in the mid-Atlantic and southeastern regions of the United States," according to a EQT Midstream Partners spokesperson.</p><p>The Federal Energy Reserve Commission <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/pipelines-approved-ferc-2497173092.html" target="_self">approved</a> the pipeline in October 2017 with a 2-1 vote, with two seats on the commission vacant. The only dissenting vote was cast by Cheryl LaFleur, who cited environmental concerns and skepticism over the pipeline's necessity as influential factors on her vote against its approval. In February, a federal court <a href="http://www.roanoke.com/news/local/franklin_county/federal-appeals-court-declines-to-block-construction-of-mountain-valley/article_ae390b82-5cb1-517b-be83-b899f983eddc.html" target="_blank">denied</a> a request to delay the pipeline's construction filed by Appalachian Voices and five other conservation organizations. Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC is currently clearing forest along the Appalachian Trail and in <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/gwj/home/?cid=stelprd3827827" target="_blank">Jefferson National Forest </a>for the pipeline construction. According to<a href="http://www.roanoke.com/news/local/giles_county/as-tree-cutting-continues-for-the-mountain-valley-pipeline-so/article_8b07005a-3ff3-11e8-a908-a3db8fb38cec.html" target="_blank"> FERC</a>, Mountain Valley Pipeline has until May 31 to complete tree cutting.</p><p>Pipeline opponents claim the pipeline's construction will negatively impact the scenery and pose various environmental risks in the Appalachian region. "We are concerned about the Appalachian Trail and the devastation that's going to occur to the views from Peters Mountain and all along this region," said Maury Johnson, a resident and property owner in West Virginia opposing the pipeline, in an interview. "Back when I was a teenager I used to help maintain the trail, and I heard stories from those folks who helped build it in the 1930s and 40s. The trail took a 22 mile detour just to get on top of Peters Mountain and get the iconic view across West Virginia. Now with this project, you'll see the pipeline coming at you probably for thirty miles."</p><p>Johnson noted that pipeline surveyors visited the property on his family farm, and he has dealt with them since surveying began in early 2015. He claimed the surveyors rushed the job, often missing details that he had to frequently point out for them to record. "Some of the work that has been done has been very flawed," he said. On his Facebook account, Johnson has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/maurywjohnson/posts/1598675140248205" target="_blank">posted </a>several photos of sediment barriers set up by Mountain Valley Pipeline being breached to prevent erosion, just one of the several risks to water quality in the area posed by the pipeline. Johnson also expressed concern for<a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/64175940/0" target="_blank"> Bentley's coral root</a>, a plant listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, only found in a few areas of Virginia and West Virginia, as one of the species at risk from the pipeline's construction.</p><p>The Mountain Valley Pipeline has <a href="http://www.roanoke.com/business/efforts-to-take-land-for-the-mountain-valley-pipeline-challenged/article_12dc22bb-b61a-569b-8565-c2a8a68d74b1.html" target="_blank">sued</a> several hundred landowners in West Virginia and Virginia to invoke eminent domain to allow it to cut trees and run the pipeline through their properties. Some landowners and pipeline opponents have resorted to conducting <a href="https://www.facebook.com/appalachiansagainstpipelines/posts/1496970327081856" target="_blank">tree sit-ins</a>, building treehouses in trees on their own property to prevent the Mountain Valley Pipeline from clearing their land.</p><p>"They came through a few days ago and cut all around me," said Red Terry, a 61 year woman who has lived in a tree on her property off Poor Mountain Road in Roanoke County, West Virginia for at least three weeks, in an interview. "My daughter is also in a tree and had them on all four sides of her. She cried all day. Nobody should have the right to eminent domain for something that is not going to help people. It's to help themselves, profit before the people."</p><p>Neighbors, friends, family and activists have helped assist Red in her tree sit-in. Despite her continued protest, she said that Mountain Valley Pipeline cut down several trees on her property and have pressured her to come down, including allegedly blackmailing her sister with artifacts found on her property in exchange for Red leaving the tree.</p><p>"When they were cutting my trees and I had tears running down my face, the cops were watching the devastation also, I looked at one of them and I thought he was going to start crying. At the same time, four Mountain Valley Pipeline security guards were laughing, carrying on, and thought it was the greatest thing in the world."</p><p>Last Thursday, police <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/perched-on-a-platform-high-in-a-tree-a-61-year-old-woman-fights-a-gas-pipeline/2018/04/21/3b8284b4-435e-11e8-bba2-0976a82b05a2_story.html?utm_term=.87a73f6a9db2" target="_blank">formally pressed</a> charges against Red Terry and her daughter; trespassing, obstruction of justice and interfering with property rights. The charges have now created a stand-off, as Red and her daughter will be arrested as soon as they descend from their trees. But their fight has become a rallying call among other pipeline opponents in the area.</p><p>On Peters Mountain, along the West Virginia and Virginia border, activists and local residents have organized other tree sit-ins, including setting up a monopod tower to try to block an access road to the pipeline construction. "The frontline communities impacted by the pipeline have been very supportive. The people in Appalachia have consistently throughout history fought back against exploitative industries like the Mountain Valley Pipeline," said Ashley, a tree sitter on Peters Mountain, in an interview. "There have been consistent police and security forces harassing us. Some are more hostile to us than others, but even when they try to play the good cop role, there's no doubt in my mind they are working on behalf of the interests of those building the pipeline." The identity of this tree sitter is being kept anonymous to prevent legal action against them.</p><p>The U.S. Department of Agricultural Forest Service <a href="http://www.bdtonline.com/news/directly-in-the-mountain-valley-pipeline-path-tree-sitters-halt/article_2ee0e30a-4123-11e8-970d-2f6d8a4ac725.html" target="_blank">shut down</a> the road and the area around the monopod from the public, only permitting Mountain Valley Pipeline services access. The monopod organizers have <a href="https://www.facebook.com/appalachiansagainstpipelines/photos/rpp.1444117392367150/1485078464937709/?type=3&theater" target="_blank">accused</a> the U.S. Forest Service of preventing supplies, water and food from being brought to the protesters. The U.S. Forest Service did not respond to a request for comment.</p><p>On March 20, Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Robert Irons <a href="http://www.bdtonline.com/news/directly-in-the-mountain-valley-pipeline-path-tree-sitters-halt/article_2ee0e30a-4123-11e8-970d-2f6d8a4ac725.html" target="_blank">denied</a> an injunction filed by the Mountain Valley Pipeline against protesters to have them removed, permitting the tree sit-ins to continue.</p><p><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines">Pipeline</a> opponents have pointed out the powerful political influence the Mountain Valley Pipeline companies have on elected officials in West Virginia and Virginia.</p><p>The companies invested in Mountain Valley Pipeline have significantly backed both Republicans and Democrats. In the 2017-2018 election cycle, EQT Midstream Partners <a href="https://www.vpap.org/donors/121574-eqt-corp/" target="_blank">gave</a> Virginia Governor Ralph Northam's campaign $25,000 and his inaugural committee another $25,000 after donating $20,000 to Republican Governor candidate Ed Gillespie's campaign. In total, they've donated $60,000 to Republican state legislators in Virginia and $56,000 to Democrats. At the federal level, EQT has <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2018&cmte=C00151175" target="_blank">donated</a> $5,000 to Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and $1000 to Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) this election cycle.</p><p>Opposition to the pipeline has started to draw some support from elected officials. On April 16, 11 Virginia House delegates, including Lee Carter, a Democratic Socialist who unseated one of the state's top Republicans in a November 2017 election, signed onto a <a href="http://bluevirginia.us/2018/04/the-fracking-tree#comment-3858514223" target="_blank">letter of support</a> for peaceful protesters against the Mountain Valley Pipeline.</p><p>"We oppose both the Mountain Valley and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/atlantic-coast-pipeline">Atlantic Coast</a> Pipelines," said Tom McIntire,a spokesperson for Delegate Lee Carter, in an email. "These projects do not provide any benefit for Virginia or her residents and ask those same residents to bear costs that are too great to reasonably expect of them. With every avenue we are given, we will work (with our colleagues of both parties alongside advocates) to ensure that these disastrous projects are halted."</p><p>As elected officials begin to support efforts to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation">conservation</a> organizations are still pursuing litigation to halt construction.</p><p>There are currently four separate cases in litigation being represented by attorneys for <a href="http://www.appalmad.org/" target="_blank">Appalachian Mountain Advocates</a> and other conservation organizations. One <a href="http://www.appalmad.org/2017/12/08/environmental-groups-challenge-virginias-unlawful-approval-of-fracked-gas-pipeline/" target="_blank">challenging</a> the state of Virginia's clean water act 401 certification of the pipeline and one challenging the the actions of the U.S. Forest Service to grant a right of way through Jefferson National Forest are scheduled to be heard on May 8. The third case <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/press-room/Petition%20for%20Review%20for%20filing.%20%281%29.pdf?scv=1518547538796" target="_blank">challenging</a> the Army Corps of Engineers' Water Quality Review is scheduled to be heard in September, with the fourth case <a href="http://www.appalmad.org/2018/01/09/enviros-sue-to-stop-mountain-valley-pipeline/" target="_blank">challenging</a> the "certificate of public convenience and necessity" granted to the pipeline by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission still pending a briefing schedule in Washington, DC court.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="99a9f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="YG29R51576662411"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="919934654467268608" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Major East Coast Pipelines Approved by FERC Despite Strong Opposition https://t.co/qgIFQCEEKL @Ecowatch</div> — Sierra Club (@Sierra Club)<a href="https://twitter.com/SierraClub/statuses/919934654467268608">1508164487.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/04/22/treetop-protest-61-year-old-red-terry-leading-fight-against-mountain-valley" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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DuPont vs. the World: Chemical Giant Covered Up Health Risks of Teflon Contamination
23 January 2018
Health + Wellness
Broadcasting from the Sundance Film Festival, we are joined by three guests who personally battled with DuPont and are featured in the new documentary called "The Devil We Know," that looks at how former DuPont employees, residents and lawyers took on the chemical giant to expose the danger of the chemical C8, found in Teflon and countless household products—from stain- and water-resistant apparel to microwave popcorn bags to dental floss. The chemical has now been linked to six diseases, including testicular and kidney cancers.
<p>We speak with Bucky Bailey, whose mother worked in the Teflon division of a DuPont plant in West Virginia while she was pregnant with him, and who was born with only one nostril and a deformed eye and has undergone more than 30 surgeries to fix the birth defects; Joe Kiger, lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against DuPont, and a school teacher in Parkersburg, West Virginia, who suffered from liver disease; and Rob Bilott, the attorney that brought DuPont to court.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="5cdc6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="F385A71576662878"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="936789537040109573" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Study Suggests Teflon Phaseout Has Prevented Thousands of Low-Weight Births, Saved Billions in Health Care Costs… https://t.co/V2FLs6AgL0</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/936789537040109573">1512183004.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p>
From Your Site Articles
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Trending
Coal Will Not Bring Appalachia Back to Life, But Tech and Government Jobs Could
04 October 2017
Popular
Closed coal mine in Boone County, West Virginia. WVPB/ Janet Kunicki
It was supposed to be all about jobs. When the president announced his intent to abandon the Clean Power Plan this spring and then withdraw from the Paris agreement this summer, one of the biggest reasons cited was to protect the coal jobs sustaining communities in places like Appalachia.
There's just one problem. Whatever the White House says, coal jobs are in a terminal decline and whatever cynics claim, it's not some cabal of heartless environmentalists to blame. It's the power industry itself, driven by advances in technology and simple market forces.
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed"></p><div id="edd1b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="JJ2M721553274963"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="878549545029959680" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The Rise and Fall of Coal in America https://t.co/euBX9UAsAv @Climate_Rescue @ZeroCarbonWorld @EUClimateAction</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/878549545029959680">1498297508.0</a></blockquote></div><p></p><p style="">But the who or what's responsible matter less than the who's left behind as coal communities in Appalachia try to figure out another way forward as jobs disappear. Especially as politicians seem more than happy to invoke them in grandstanding statements without actually doing much for them on the ground.</p><p style="">So as the administration this week <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-10-02/rick-perry-s-coal-power-subsidy-proposal-is-nuts" target="_blank">announced a new plan</a> that seems designed to prop up failing coal CEOs and companies rather than actually care for the communities they claim to fight for, we ask a simple question the government really should be asking: Can Appalachia thrive without coal?</p><p style="">The answer, we believe, is "Yes."</p><p style=""><strong>A Changing Energy Landscape</strong></p><p style="">One of the most important factors in the decline of U.S. coal isn't regulation, but market forces. As <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">renewable energy</a> technologies like <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/solar">solar</a> and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wind">wind</a> have become cost competitive with fossil fuels, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/13/coal-global-demand-falls-2016-second-year-in-row-fossil-fuel" target="_blank">demand for coal has waned</a> in the power sector. In 2006, coal provided 49 percent of U.S. electricity; just 10 years later, that number had fallen to 30 percent. Beyond collapsing demand, across the last several decades, automated technologies like rock crushers and shovel swings have replaced miners, leading to steady employment declines dating back to the early 1980s. In 1979, there were 250,000 coal miners in the U.S. In 2016, only 53,000 workers held the same position.<br></p><p style="">"There's almost zero reason to be completely optimistic," Ted Boettner, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, <a href="http://time.com/coals-last-kick/" target="_blank">told Time earlier this year</a>. "It's a disservice to coal-mining communities to tell them they will have a mighty comeback."</p><p style=""><strong>Where Are We Talking About?</strong></p><p style="">The Appalachian region covers nearly 205,000 square miles and includes all of West Virginia and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. It's home to more than 25 million Americans.<br></p><p style="">And it is a region in crisis. Appalachia is <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/3/16079772/opioid-epidemic-drug-overdoses" target="_blank">ground zero for the opioid epidemic</a> ravaging the U.S. Poverty is pervasive—South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, West Virginia and Mississippi all fall <a href="https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk" target="_blank">in the bottom 10 in per capita income</a> in the U.S. Those same states also <a href="https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_15_5YR_S1501" target="_blank">fall in the bottom 10</a> in terms of educational attainment—save for South Carolina, which ranks just outside the bottom 10 at number 39.</p><p style="">These issues coupled with an absence of good-paying jobs has led to an exodus of high-performing students and skilled tradesmen from the region. Those who can leave often do, and they don't come back—a phenomenon often referred to as "brain drain."</p><p style="">So, how do we combat these troubling trends? The answer cannot be found in the region's past and the dirty, dangerous coal that propelled its initial growth. Instead, reinvigorating one of America's most beautiful and misunderstood regions has everything to do with the future, specifically computers and public service.</p><p style=""><strong>'Silicon Holler'?</strong></p><p style="">In some circles, the conversation on how to reinvigorate Appalachia has largely centered on bringing technological innovation to the region.<br></p><p style="">Excellent coverage on The Daily Show (below) and <a href="http://www.hbo.com/vice/episodes/05/79-vice-79-dark-web-and-future-of-appalachia/index.html" target="_blank">HBO's Vice News</a> has centered on programs dedicated to retraining former coal miners to code. It's a natural fit: As with coding, mining requires strong problem-solving and decision-making skills, and comfort with technology (albeit a very different kind of technology). Plus, most coding jobs can be performed from almost anywhere, and Appalachia is already home to an enormous pool of talent—as Pikeville, Kentucky-based software development startup <a href="http://bitsourceky.com/" target="_blank">Bit Source</a> discovered when <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/06/477033781/from-coal-to-code-a-new-path-for-laid-off-miners-in-kentucky" target="_blank">it received nearly 1,000 applications</a> for just 10 available positions.</p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fclimatereality%2Fvideos%2F10155708537706800%2F&show_text=0&width=560" width="560" height="315" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div><p style="">Each year, 600,000 well-paying jobs in the US technology sector go unfilled, and many are eventually sent overseas. But these jobs could be on-shored—<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/21/tech-industry-coding-kentucky-hillbillies" target="_blank">if more Americans had the right skills</a>.<br></p><p>In this area, funding for programs that provide training in just those skills has largely come through the <a href="https://www.arc.gov/" target="_blank">Appalachian Regional Commission</a> (ARC), "a federal-state partnership that works with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life." ARC was founded in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his "war on poverty."</p><p style="">Last year, in the Obama Administration's final budget, Congress approved a budget of $146 million for the agency—"<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/why-the-appalachian-regional-commission-matters/519876/" target="_blank">its highest budget in decades, in order for it to focus on coal-impacted communities</a>." ARC's POWER initiative specifically targets Appalachian communities affected by job losses in coal mining. In addition to supporting technological education, it awards grants for projects that improve highway and sewer systems and community health care access.</p><p style="">ARC programs are expected to create or retain more than 23,670 jobs as well as train and educate more than 49,000 students and workers, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-budget-appalachia/trump-seeks-to-ax-appalachia-economic-programs-causing-worry-in-coal-country-idUSKBN16N2VF?il=0" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>.</p><p style="">Unfortunately, earlier this year, the Trump Administration <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/here-are-the-independent-agencies-trump-wants-to-stop-funding/519786/" target="_blank">proposed phasing out ARC</a> as part of its "skinny budget."</p><p style="">"We're making sure the Appalachia workforce is prepared for jobs," ARC Communications Director Wendy Wasserman <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/why-the-appalachian-regional-commission-matters/519876/" target="_blank">told The Atlantic in March</a>. According to Wasserman, ARC already has invested more than $73 million in projects across the region that include "teaching coal miners how to code, helping develop agricultural activity on former coal land, and training folks who would have been tracked into coal into solar installation or construction."</p><p style=""><strong>Government for the People</strong></p><p style="">Vox's Matthew Yglesias <a href="https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/12/9/13881712/move-government-to-midwest" target="_blank">made a very compelling argument</a> that "the federal government [should] take the lead in rebalancing America's allocation of population and resources by taking a good hard look at whether so much federal activity needs to be concentrated in Washington, DC, and its suburbs."<br></p><p style="">He was arguing that this redistribution should focus on the Midwest, in part, because the poorer areas of America like Appalachia lack "the basic infrastructure of prosperity." We'd argue that he should spend some time in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee; Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia; Birmingham and Huntsville, Alabama; and Asheville, North Carolina, and their suburbs—all of which are well-positioned for growth and could welcome government agencies as comfortably as cities like Detroit, Cleveland or Milwaukee.</p><p style="">Yglesias pointed to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which employs nearly 3,000 people and is located in Gaithersburg, Maryland; the Woodlawn, Maryland-centered Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (4,000 employees); and the National Weather Service, and its 5,000 employees headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, among others, as examples of major government agencies that do not require "routine physical proximity to elected officials" and have already relocated to the DC suburbs.</p><p style="">Bringing these important, high-skilled jobs to Appalachia could do wonders for regional and state economies, and provide their employees with a lower cost of living. And if all those government jobs were brought to Appalachia, they'd have a trickle-down effect that would create even more jobs in the region—after all, those government employees will need doctors and dentists, carpenters, plumbers, masons and child care providers; and each of the professionals mentioned will frequent restaurants, movie theaters and grocery stores.</p><p>More jobs means more state tax revenue to fund educational and medical resources and infrastructure that would improve the overall quality of life for the entirety of Appalachia.</p><p style="">And importantly—and contrary to unfortunate, unfair, and plainly false stereotypes—the workforce to fill these high-skilled roles long into the future is ready and waiting in the high schools of the region's mountains and hollers.</p><p style=""><strong>Hope in the Hollers</strong></p><p style="">Steven Palmer, an English educator in eastern Kentucky, explained as much during an uplifting 2016 TEDx Talk (below), noting that Appalachia's most valuable resource isn't coal, it's the "young, creative, critical-thinking minds that sit within its classrooms."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube"><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="541c7df4bf9fde919cd6012abd43a1b1"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tb9SAMDQVeg?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span></p><p style="">"We cannot continue the narrative that Appalachia is a problem without a solution," Palmer lamented. "We need to believe in our students' ability to disrupt the status quo of their homes. This can cause the largest young person-led economic revitalization in American history."<br></p><p style="">Palmer is right, of course. And it's a status quo that can be disrupted—by young people able to find good employment in their region, and by coal miners retrained to work in a twenty-first century economy, not a nineteenth-century one.</p><p style="">And it's a disruption that could save thousands of lives. Covering the opioid epidemic crippling communities across West Virginia, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nneykb/the-hard-times-struggles-and-hopes-of-appalachian-addicts-ang" target="_blank">Vice writer Juliet Escoria noted</a> that the cycle of abuse and relapse eventually has less to do with the appeal of the high itself and is instead "about figuring out how to live life without [it]."</p><p style="">"Relapses don't happen because someone offers you free drugs on a silver platter. They happen when the dumb s**t in life piles up, when you can't find a job or figure out how to feed yourself like a normal human being," <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nneykb/the-hard-times-struggles-and-hopes-of-appalachian-addicts-ang" target="_blank">Escoria wrote</a>. "They happen because your brain won't stop telling you that you're a piece of s**t."</p><p style="">With that in mind, imagine an Appalachia where people could find well-paying jobs at all skill levels. An Appalachia were citizens knew they were contributing to their country the way they used to—only instead of providing raw materials like coal to keep the lights on, they're facilitating government services to help others and creating the websites, applications, tools and software solutions powering our plugged-in world.</p><p>So rather than dangle an unlikely return to former glories in front of the residents of these mountains, disrespecting the dignity and history of a proud people who helped build this country, let's be realistic and do everything we can to start a new chapter.</p><p style="">And for any DC-dweller or Bay Area local worried about what a life outside of the concrete jungle looks like, here's your new morning commute view:</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style=""><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xMTQ3NzYwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDE0ODk2OX0.hc-LX6D2Kb57ARrecrDi75DSE-fzYvOAFSbQ2pSB8Bs/img.jpg?width=980" id="1ae10" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="11ccbec8f63c09e59368ad08785138a2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"></p><p style="">Not bad, huh?</p><p style=""><em><span></span>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/coal-will-not-bring-appalachia-back-life-tech-and-government-jobs-could" target="_blank">The Climate Reality Project</a>.</em></p>
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Thousands of Miles of Pipelines Enrage Landowners, Threaten the Future of Our Planet
17 July 2017
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Energy company filings (shapefile), Energy Information Administration. Leanne Abraham, Alyson Hurt and Katie Park/NPR
By Kristen Lombardi and Jamie Smith Hopkins
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.
<p>But some scientists warn that the rush to more fully tap the rich <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/">Marcellus and Utica shales</a> is bad for a <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">dangerously warming planet</a>, extending the country's fossil-fuel habit by half a century. Industry consultants say there isn't even enough demand in the U.S. for all the gas that would come from this boost in production.</p><p>And yet, five of the 11 pipelines already have been approved. The rest await a decision from a federal regulator that almost never says no.</p><p>The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is charged with making sure new gas pipelines are in the public interest and have minimal impact. This is no small matter. Companies given certificates to build by FERC gain a powerful tool: eminent domain, enabling them to proceed whether affected landowners cooperate or not.</p><p>Only twice in the past 30 years has FERC rejected a pipeline out of hundreds proposed, according to an investigation by the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/" target="_blank">Center for Public Integrity</a> and <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/" target="_blank">StateImpact Pennsylvania</a>, a public media partnership between WITF in Harrisburg and WHYY in Philadelphia. At best, FERC officials superficially probe projects' ramifications for the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">changing climate</a>, despite persistent calls by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa">EPA</a>) for deeper analyses. FERC's assessments of need are based largely on company filings. That's not likely to change with a pro-infrastructure president who can now fill four open seats on the five-member commission.</p><p>"They don't seem to pay any attention to opponents," said Tom Hadwin, a retired utility manager from Staunton, Virginia. He doubts FERC will be swayed by the flood of written comments, including his own, and studies critiquing the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/atlantic-coast-pipeline" target="_blank">Atlantic Coast pipeline</a>. It's the largest of the pending projects and would wind nearly 600 miles from West Virginia into his home state and North Carolina.</p><p>"FERC will issue the certificate," Hadwin said. "They always have."</p><p>FERC declined Center for Public Integrity and StateImpact Pennsylvania requests to interview Cheryl A. LaFleur, its acting chairman, as well as senior officials. In response to written questions, the agency said it hasn't kept track of the number of projects it denies. It provided a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3894322-FERC-Q-amp-A.html" target="_blank">brief statement</a> offering little insight into its pipeline-approval process. FERC spokeswoman Mary O'Driscoll wrote that, as a quasi-judicial body, "we must be very careful about what we say."</p><p>In the statement, the agency said the <a href="https://www.eia.gov/oil_gas/natural_gas/analysis_publications/ngmajorleg/ngact1938.html" target="_blank">Natural Gas Act of 1938</a> requires it to approve infrastructure projects that it <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/717f" target="_blank">finds</a> would serve "the present or future public convenience and necessity." FERC wouldn't explain how it weighs competing interests; instead, it pointed to a <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/legal/maj-ord-reg/PL99-3-000.pdf" target="_blank">1999 </a><a href="https://www.ferc.gov/legal/maj-ord-reg/PL99-3-000.pdf" target="_blank">policy</a> outlining how it defers to market forces. That policy, still in effect, was influenced by, among others, <a href="http://www.npr.org/news/specials/enron/" target="_blank">Enron</a>, the energy firm whose spectacular collapse in 2001 led to prosecutions and bankruptcy.</p><p>Former insiders defend the commission, describing its mandate as limited. Renewable-energy consultant Jon Wellinghoff, a FERC commissioner from 2006 to 2013, including nearly five years as its chairman, said the agency has little leeway for denying a pipeline. "It has to stay within the tracks," he said.</p><p>Donald F. Santa Jr., a former FERC commissioner who heads the pipeline industry's trade group, the <a href="http://www.ingaa.org/cms/115.aspx" target="_blank">Interstate Natural Gas Association of America</a>, said the agency's low denial rate merely reflects the quality of the projects. They're so expensive to build that few make it off the drawing board into FERC applications.</p><p>"It's the envy of the world," Santa said, referring to the nation's pipeline network. "It is something that has enabled us to have remarkably competitive natural gas markets that have benefited consumers and the economy."</p><p>Two former directors of the FERC office overseeing pipelines say no project survives the vetting process without route alterations or other changes. On occasion, FERC has delayed or rescinded approval of projects that don't meet specific conditions. But at every turn, the agency's process favors pipeline companies, according to Center for Public Integrity and StateImpact Pennsylvania interviews with more than 100 people, reviews of FERC records and analyses of nearly 500 pipeline cases.</p><p>Among the findings:</p><p>● It's hard to see where FERC ends and industry begins. Dozens of agency staff members have had to recuse themselves in recent years while negotiating jobs at energy firms. Most commissioners leave FERC to work for industry as well, in some cases lobbying their successors.</p><p>● Four of six major pending pipelines in the Appalachian basin were proposed by companies planning to sell pipeline capacity to utilities they own. Analysts who have scrutinized some of these cases say this new wave of self-dealing raises the risk of companies pursuing unneeded infrastructure that utility customers would end up paying for. FERC dismissed such concerns about two pipelines approved last year.</p><p>● The Obama-era EPA repeatedly asked FERC to scrutinize projects' climate impacts, saying in a <a href="https://cdxnodengn.epa.gov/cdx-enepa-II/public/action/eis/details?downloadAttachment=&attachmentId=219128" target="_blank">rebuke in October</a> that its failure to properly do so did not comply with a key environmental law.</p><p>● FERC delays appeals of its pipeline approvals for months while allowing companies to begin construction. In seven cases since 2015, gas already was flowing in the pipeline by the time opponents could challenge it in court.</p><p>In February, on his last day as a commissioner, former FERC Chairman Norman Bay <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3517166-FERC-Bay-Statement.html" target="_blank">recommended</a> that the agency evaluate the cumulative effects of increased gas production in the Marcellus and Utica shales, mostly in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio—an analysis environmentalists have advocated. Bay urged the agency to be more rigorous in its reviews.</p><p>"It is inefficient to build pipelines that may not be needed over the long term and that become stranded assets," wrote Bay, an Obama appointee.</p><p>But FERC has resisted making such reforms. Now, with FERC down to a single commissioner and temporarily without a quorum, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">President Donald Trump</a> gets to reshape the agency. Among <a href="http://www.utilitydive.com/news/senate-committee-advances-trumps-ferc-nominees/444353/" target="_blank">those he has tapped</a> for the commission is a pro-gas utility regulator from Pennsylvania, Robert Powelson, who in March <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2017/03/21/utility-regulator-slams-pipeline-opponents/" target="_blank">likened</a> protests against pipelines to "jihad," later calling that "an <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2017/03/23/amid-criticism-utility-regulator-walks-back-jihad-remark/" target="_blank">inappropriate</a> choice of words."</p><p>"We've got abundant supply," Powelson said at a gas-industry conference. "What we don't have is adequate pipeline infrastructure."</p><p><strong>Close ties with industry</strong></p><p>In the past few years, FERC has overseen what it says is <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/market-oversight/reports-analyses/st-mkt-ovr/2016-som.pdf" target="_blank">one of the largest boosts</a> in natural-gas pipeline capacity in American history. It issued certificates in 2015 for projects that collectively <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/media/headlines/2017/2017-1/01-26-17.pdf" target="_blank">can carry</a> 14.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day. The next year, it approved an additional 17.6 billion cubic feet.</p><p>Newly built pipe has helped move Appalachian gas to markets along the East Coast and in the Midwest, the agency says.</p><p>That, in essence, explains how FERC sees its role—dating to its birth in a decade marred by energy crises. In 1977, amid a <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=7167" target="_blank">natural-gas shortage</a> and after <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/oil-embargo" target="_blank">an oil embargo</a> by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Congress created the agency and placed it within, yet <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/students/whatisferc.asp" target="_blank">independent of</a>, the new U.S. Department of Energy. FERC's <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/about/about.asp" target="_blank">mission</a>: "Reliable, Efficient and Sustainable Energy."</p><p>Proponents of the pipeline buildout argue that more American gas brings jobs to places sorely in need of them by fueling energy-hungry factories. And gas has bypassed higher-carbon <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> as the dominant energy source in the U.S. But grassroots pushback is coming from both ends of the political spectrum, driven by concerns over the climate and individual property rights.</p><p>To such critics, FERC has come to epitomize a captured regulator.</p><p>Records obtained by the Center for Public Integrity and StateImpact Pennsylvania through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal an exceptionally cozy relationship between regulator and regulated. Emails and official calendars from mid-2010 through 2016 show a steady march of industry representatives before commissioners. Large energy companies—Kinder Morgan, Dominion Energy, Energy Transfer Partners, Duke Energy—scheduled at least 93 meetings with FERC officials during those 6 ½ years. Trade groups like <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3892360-ENCLOSURE-PART-3-EDISON-ELECTRIC-INSTITUTE-EEI.html" target="_blank">Edison Electric Institute</a> and <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3892362-ENCLOSURE-PART-1-AMERICAN-GAS-ASSOCIATION-FOIA.html" target="_blank">American Gas Association</a> wooed commissioners and staff with invitations to executive dinners and after-hours parties. Former commissioners-turned-lobbyists, such as INGAA's Santa, called on their successors.</p><p>By contrast, records show, FERC commissioners met with environmental and public-interest groups 17 times over this period.</p><p>In many ways, FERC operates like a one-way street: Commissioners may come to it from legislative or regulatory bodies, but almost always leave for industry. Eighty percent of the 35 former commissioners have spent at least part of their post-FERC careers at energy companies or law firms, trade groups and consultancies representing them. Many have ties to natural gas through work or positions on corporate boards.</p><p>There's a similar pattern among FERC's rank and file. Since 2012, staff members have submitted more than 50 requests to recuse themselves from regulatory work while seeking jobs at energy firms or consulting groups hired by the industry, agency documents show.</p><p>Some who have left FERC return to do the bidding of their new employers. In email exchanges in 2016, one woman who now works for Edison Electric Institute called on her former co-workers multiple times—seeking materials for an email blast, for instance, or inviting FERC commissioners to EEI events.</p><p>"Are you ready for the protestors??" she <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3892361-ENCLOSURE-PART-3A-EDISON-ELECTRIC-INSTITUTE-EEI.html" target="_blank">wrote</a> in one email to her former colleagues. "Too bad you guys can't move the open mtg like last year. They just keep sucking!"</p><p>Many critics see an inherent industry bias at FERC: Its budget is <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/about/strat-docs/2016/FY17-Budget-Request.pdf" target="_blank">fully covered</a> by fees collected from regulated companies. Last year, a Pennsylvania environmental group <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3380708-FERC-Complaint-FINAL.html" target="_blank">sued</a> FERC over this funding mechanism, alleging it creates "a perverse incentive" for the agency to build pipelines. The lawsuit is on appeal after a federal court <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/legal/court-cases/opinions/2017/16-cv-416.pdf" target="_blank">dismissed it</a> in March, noting that Congress ultimately sets FERC's budget.</p><p>This is the agency's approval process: Take proposals as they come, see if the pipeline has long-term customer contracts, gather public feedback, try to keep local impacts to a minimum and assure basic safety standards.</p><p>J. Mark Robinson, an industry consultant, worked at FERC from 1978 to 2009, heading the office overseeing gas pipelines in his final years there. Interstate transmission lines often never go forward, he said, but FERC's results speak for themselves. Pipelines get built; people get energy.</p><p>Pipeline companies, for their part, say the review process is exacting. Bruce McKay, senior energy policy director at Dominion, majority owner and operator of the Atlantic Coast pipeline, said the companies behind the proposal have submitted 100,000 pages of documentation to FERC and made 300 route adjustments to avoid ecologically sensitive areas at the agency's request.</p><p>"They're not there to do our bidding," McKay said of FERC.</p><p>It doesn't seem that way to Chad Oba, a mental-health counselor from Buckingham County, Virginia. There the Atlantic Coast developers plan to build a massive compressor station where engines would throb to keep gas moving. Oba attended a FERC meeting on the project in 2015, driving nearly an hour with as many neighbors as she could to testify. They didn't want an industrial complex in their rural area, already crisscrossed by four gas pipelines. They questioned its siting amid a largely poor, African-American community founded by freed slaves.</p><p>"I thought, 'Surely, these things will be considered,'" said Oba, of the anti-pipeline group Friends of Buckingham. But FERC has backed the location. The agency has never held a hearing in her county, despite requests from her group and a county commissioner.</p><p>"They've treated Buckingham very badly," she said.</p><p>Such sentiments may not be what Charles B. Curtis, FERC's first chairman, envisioned in 1979, when he wrote in congressional testimony that "we must create public confidence … and demonstrate that regulation can work effectively to promote the public interest." At the time, he was looking to fund a congressionally mandated Office of Public Participation at FERC.</p><p>That never happened. Members of Congress couldn't agree on funding for the office that year. The Center for Public Integrity and StateImpact Pennsylvania found no evidence that FERC tried to launch the office again, despite congressional requests and a formal <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3893829-Petition-to-FERC-to-Establish-an-OPP.html" target="_blank">petition</a> to do so.</p><p>Those seeking to challenge a pipeline frequently run into roadblocks. Before mounting a case in court, opponents must first appeal to FERC, which, by law, has 30 days to act. Yet records show commissioners routinely fulfill this obligation by granting themselves more time to issue a final ruling, leaving the challengers in limbo. Meanwhile, FERC allows pipeline companies to move ahead. By the time opponents get to court, construction can be well underway—or finished.</p><p>Ryan Talbott, an environmental lawyer at Appalachian Mountain Advocates, said he's seen this pattern play out in every pipeline case he's fought—more than a dozen so far. Last year, he set out to analyze FERC's record on pipeline appeals. He found that commissioners take, on average, eight months to deliberate—then deny the appeals. A lawsuit filed against FERC seeks to have this practice declared unconstitutional.</p><p>The agency declined to comment.</p><p>FERC's methods have fueled a grassroots campaign against it. Pipeline opponents have protested outside its Washington, D.C., headquarters since 2014. Some have gone on hunger strikes, interrupted commission meetings or picketed commissioners' houses. Last year, 182 groups in 35 states <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3455976-Cong-Hrgs-Request-Sign-On.html" target="_blank">called</a> for congressional hearings into "the many ways communities are being harmed by FERC."</p><p>Current and former officials consider the protests misplaced. Comprehensive energy regulation isn't within FERC's purview, they say; those who want changes should talk to Congress.</p><p>FERC opponents have done that, to no avail. But William Penniman, a retired lawyer who represented pipeline firms before FERC and is now active with the <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/virginia" target="_blank">Sierra Club's Virginia chapter</a>, said the agency already has the authority to do more, yet chooses not to.</p><p>"Climate change, stranded assets, the construction bubble—they are not coming to grips with that," he said.</p><p><strong>Pressing FERC on climate</strong></p><p>Gas-company executives often pitch their fuel to FERC as a long-term necessity for the country, filling in for renewable energy sources when the sun fades or the wind lags, powering industrial furnaces, heating homes. Companies propose new pipelines meant to last 50 years or more, presenting them as climate-friendly.</p><p>Environmentalists disagree, however, and are pushing FERC to dig deeper. Each additional gas pipeline, they warn, will make it easier to delay no-carbon alternatives and could lock in even worse effects of global warming.</p><p>Natural gas burns cleaner than coal, giving off about half the planet-heating carbon dioxide and a fraction of the toxic air emissions. Yet to avoid the worst of the heat waves, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought">droughts</a>, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding">floods</a> and other consequences of climate change, the Obama White House <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3889630-U-S-Cover-Note-INDC-and-Accompanying-Information.html" target="_blank">said</a> the U.S. needed to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 80 percent below 2005 levels no later than 2050. That's all emissions from all sources, not just electricity and heating. And it's 33 years from now, less than the lifetime of a pipeline.</p><p>Indeed, some advocates have <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3517043-Bridge-Too-Far-Report-v6-3.html" target="_blank">calculated</a> that new pipelines in the Appalachian basin would yield enough greenhouse-gas emissions from natural gas alone to surpass that goal.</p><p>That's because the primary component of natural gas—<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane">methane</a>—is a short-lived yet powerful greenhouse gas also contributing to climate change. Methane wafts into the atmosphere during every stage in the gas supply chain: Wells, processing facilities, pipelines and compressor stations all leak. Some vent methane by design.</p><p>The EPA has pegged the national rate at which methane escapes from oil and gas drilling sites at between one and two percent, based on industry estimates. Some independent research suggests that may be accurate.</p><p>But Robert Howarth, an environmental biology professor at Cornell University, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3759966-Howarth-2015-Methane-and-Climactic-Warming.html" target="_blank">estimates</a> that methane emissions produced by shale gas from wellhead to delivery could add up to a 12-percent leak rate—causing substantially more warming in the short term than coal. Howarth sees the rapid rise in gas development as a contributor to the recent spike in global temperatures, including record-breaking heat waves in 2015 and 2016.</p><p>"The buildout of pipelines," he said, "is a true climate disaster."</p><p>Despite prodding from the EPA since 2013, FERC hasn't taken a comprehensive look at the climate effects of gas projects before approving them. The agency only began estimating greenhouse-gas emissions from the burning of gas last year, and not in all cases. The total emissions for five pipelines, all pending: 170 million metric tons per year combined, the warming <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator" target="_blank">equivalent</a> of 50 coal plants.</p><p>FERC refused to comment on its climate reviews, citing unspecified litigation. The Obama EPA contended that FERC has a duty to evaluate a pipeline proposal's climate impacts under the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/nepa" target="_blank">National Environmental Policy Act</a>. EPA officials said so in a <a href="https://cdxnodengn.epa.gov/cdx-enepa-II/public/action/eis/details;jsessionid=E359DFA73D7CA3795B9116D9914AEF1C?downloadAttachment=&attachmentId=219128" target="_blank">pointed letter</a> to FERC in October, after yet another pipeline review failed to estimate production or end-use emissions, calling the absence of these calculations "very concerning."</p><p>The EPA says productive discussions have taken place since. But FERC has yet to evaluate greenhouse gas emissions for pipelines as thoroughly as its counterpart urged.</p><p>It also doesn't delve into whether electric utilities seeking gas for future plants could handle demand another way, such as energy efficiency and renewables. Such alternatives, FERC said in its reviews, would not fulfil the purpose of the project—"to transport natural gas."</p><p>It boils down to a dispute about how far FERC can or should go.</p><p>"FERC has no legislative authority whatsoever to look at climate impacts," said Wellinghoff, one of the only former commissioners with a renewable-energy background. "I would have loved to have had that authority at FERC, but I didn't."</p><p>Still, people keep pressing FERC to act. Last year, the <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a> and other groups sued the agency over its failure to calculate greenhouse-gas emissions from the since-built Sabal Trail pipeline, which runs from Alabama into Georgia and Florida. At a D.C. appellate court hearing in April, judges asked a FERC lawyer why the agency hadn't done so.</p><p>The lawyer said FERC had determined the project wouldn't meaningfully contribute to climate change. Judge Judith W. Rogers said it wasn't possible to know that without doing the calculations.</p><p>"FERC said, 'We're just not going to do anything,'" she said.</p><p><strong>Enron's advice</strong></p><p>In the 1990s, FERC posed this question: Was its pipeline-approval process working well? One company argued that the agency needed "to shift its focus away from command-and-control regulation towards policies that increasingly rely on market forces."</p><p>That company was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/02/us/enron-fast-facts/index.html" target="_blank">Enron</a>. In 1999, its free-market views influenced <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/legal/maj-ord-reg/PL99-3-000.pdf" target="_blank">FERC's policy</a> on how it would weigh projects. Years later, a New Jersey man fighting a pipeline that would run 167 feet from his daughter's bedroom read the historical document with outrage and disbelief.</p><p>"You might have heard of Enron," said Mike Spille, a software engineer trying to fend off the <a href="http://penneastpipeline.com/" target="_blank">PennEast</a> project, planned in Pennsylvania and his state. "It was a big giant bubble company that exploded and lots of people went to jail. Companies like Enron are the ones that set this FERC policy, and it's part of the reason why it's so bad."</p><p>For the agency, customer contracts for pipelines are "strong evidence" of what the market wants. Since 1999, it has never denied a project that had them. The two it rejected did not.</p><p>Pipeline company executives believe this makes sense. No developer would sink potentially billions of dollars into an unnecessary project, they say. No utility or other gas shipper would pay millions of dollars for unneeded capacity.</p><p>But relying on contracts to judge need can be problematic. The Appalachian pipelines illustrate that.</p><p>First off, some of them are getting eminent-domain authority to take gas out of the country—there simply isn't enough domestic demand, analysts say, which is something FERC does not consider.</p><p>Three new or pending Appalachian pipelines have space set aside for gas going to Canada. Another <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3891653-WB-Xpress-Reference-to-Cove-Point-2015.html" target="_blank">played up</a> its proximity to Dominion's nearly complete <a href="https://www.dominionenergy.com/covepoint" target="_blank">export terminal</a> in Maryland. Even projects pitched as purely domestic might not end up that way—pipelines interconnect.</p><p>Beyond that, <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kvuT-cNW0zhnZGnqPLkFn9vJMunaFSZqUVyY3UYxq8k/edit#gid=0" target="_blank">many of these pipeline contracts</a> have an incestuous quality. Companies are building them for their own subsidiaries—mostly electric or gas utilities and gas producers. It's as if one hand wrote the contract and the other signed it.</p><p>Industry experts say this trend increases the risk of overbuilding. One reason is that interstate pipelines are more profitable than power plants and other infrastructure that utilities erect for themselves.</p><p>"It's a nice way to make money," said Greg Lander of <a href="http://english.skippingstone.com/index.php/greg-lander-president/" target="_blank">Skipping Stone</a>, a gas- and electric-industry consulting firm. "The market need isn't there."</p><p>Lander's firm, hired by an environmental group to examine PennEast, <a href="http://rethinkenergynj.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/PennEastNotNeeded.pdf" target="_blank">found</a> no economic justification for the pipeline, which will mostly serve utilities and other firms owned by the developers. The New Jersey <a href="http://www.nj.gov/rpa/" target="_blank">agency</a> representing utility customers is also skeptical.</p><p>"NJ Rate Counsel is concerned that … the 'need' for the Project appears to be driven more by the search for higher returns on investment than any actual deficiency in gas supply," the agency <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3889497-New-Jersey-Rate-Counsel-Comments-on-PennEast.html" target="_blank">wrote</a> to FERC last year.</p><p>It urged FERC to examine whether the contracts reflected true demand. FERC didn't. Instead, it gave the pipeline a preliminary thumbs-up, the last step before approval.</p><p>PennEast spokeswoman Patricia Kornick said the project would improve reliability and ease price fluctuations. Companies signed up "because they recognize the need for an abundant, reliable, clean energy source," she wrote in an email.</p><p>Het Shah, who leads natural gas market research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a consulting firm, said the Appalachian boom isn't just about new pipelines, but also older ones turning flow around to push gas out of the region. It's "definitely an overbuild," he said, but he sees a strategy driving it—exports.</p><p>U.S. gas moved by pipeline to Canada and Mexico <a href="https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9132us2a.htm" target="_blank">tripled</a> in the past decade, with more coming. There's also a <a href="https://energy.gov/articles/us-department-energy-authorizes-golden-pass-export-liquefied-natural-gas-golden-pass" target="_blank">rush to build</a> liquefied natural gas terminals to ship product overseas.</p><p>International markets could help Appalachian producers <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/02/17/drilling-downturn-hits-marcellus-shale-industry-hard/" target="_blank">battered</a> by <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/01/oil_and_gas_drillers_facing_ba.html" target="_blank">low prices</a>. But it makes landowners along pipeline routes livid. They don't see how it's in the public "convenience and necessity" to seize private property in America so firms can make money selling gas outside the country.</p><p>That's what people told FERC about Northern Access 2016, a Pennsylvania-to-New York pipeline that would feed much of its gas to Canadian markets. The commissioners <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/CalendarFiles/20170203194955-CP15-115-000.pdf" target="_blank">said</a> in February that this was a matter for the Energy Department—not noting that the other agency <a href="https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/11/f34/ord3912.pdf" target="_blank">automatically approves</a> exports to Canada.</p><p>The point, FERC said, was that all the capacity had been contracted. It approved the pipeline.</p><p><strong>The fight on the ground</strong></p><p>The policy debates around pipelines can seem far away to those living in isolated communities in west-central Virginia, the epicenter of opposition to the Atlantic Coast project. Residents who don't consider themselves environmentalists don "NO PIPELINE" T-shirts and hats and routinely show up at opposition rallies.</p><p>In Virginia, as in many places on proposed construction routes, the threat of eminent domain fuels this fight. Landowners say they object to the idea that companies can take private property—seizing permanent pathways, 75 feet wide or more—for corporate gain. They say the one-time payments they're offered don't make up for what they're losing.</p><p>These landowners include Becci Harmon, a drug-and-alcohol program officer from Swoope, whose house sits within 50 feet of the Atlantic Coast route; she fears the one-acre plot on which she's lived for 26 years will turn into a gutter after the pipeline wipes out her trees, garden and septic system. Richard Averitt, an entrepreneur from Nellysford, believes it will jeopardize his plan to develop an "eco-friendly" resort after it cuts the wooded, 100-acre site in half.</p><p>"This pipeline in particular is so egregious. It's 95 percent virgin land," Averitt said. "It's land privately owned or in the public trust."</p><p>Atlantic Coast became an issue in Virginia's recent gubernatorial primary, but Dominion and Duke say supporters outnumber opponents. The companies point to recent polling by an <a href="https://consumerenergyalliance.org/about/our-members/" target="_blank">energy industry group</a> that includes Dominion among its members. Its survey shows that 55 percent of residents back the project while 30 percent oppose it. They also cite a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3766801-April-4-2017-WVVANC-FERC.html" target="_blank">letter</a>, signed by 16 state lawmakers from Virginia, North Carolina and West Virginia, urging FERC officials to approve the pipeline. Last month, a New York watchdog group released a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3760585-AtlanticCoastPipelineReport-Copy-Embargoed-Until.html" target="_blank">report </a>revealing that five of the signatories are top recipients of either Dominion's or Duke's political contributions.</p><p>Supporters writing <a href="http://www.richmond.com/opinion/their-opinion/guest-columnists/ward-burton-how-environmental-stewardship-and-pipeline-development-can-co/article_fef2adf9-5356-5389-b3eb-786ba81490cb.html" target="_blank">op-eds</a> distributed by the companies include landowner Ward Burton. He was impressed that Dominion altered the project's route to avoid crossing a creek twice and a forest once on the 565 acres in Blackstone, Virginia, owned by his <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> foundation.</p><p>Unions are eager to see the pipeline move ahead. "We're going to put people to work," said Matthew Yonka, president of the Virginia State Building & Construction Trades Council.</p><p>Still, there can be localized problems. The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rover-pipeline">Rover pipeline</a>, which runs from Pennsylvania to Michigan, racked up more than $900,000 in proposed penalties from Ohio regulators after FERC approved it in February. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3891736-Ohio-EPA-Final-Orders.html" target="_blank">Officials say</a> its owner, Energy Transfer Partners, kept spilling drilling fluid into wetlands, ponds and streams—including, in one case, several million gallons of a clay mixture tinged with petroleum.</p><p>Energy Transfer's Alexis Daniel said the company considers land restoration "a top priority" and is working to resolve the matter. Craig W. Butler, who heads the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, said the company claimed the state has no authority to penalize it. He's grateful FERC intervened: It's halted certain drilling work on the pipeline while <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/media/statements-speeches/lafleur/2017/06-01-17-lafleur.asp#.WVo-2YTyuUl" target="_blank">investigating</a> the damage.</p><p>Some states, less impressed with FERC's process, have pushed back. New York regulators denied necessary water permits for two pipelines, the Constitution <a href="http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/105941.html" target="_blank">last year</a> and Northern Access <a href="http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/109767.html" target="_blank">in April</a>. Both projects <a href="http://constitutionpipeline.com/constitution-pipeline-challenges-decision-by-new-york-state-to-block-federally-approved-pipeline/" target="_blank">are on hold</a> as the <a href="http://www.natfuel.com/supply/NorthernAccess2016/docs/4-10-17%20NYS%20Exec%20Branch%20denies%20permits%20for%20NA.pdf" target="_blank">developers wait</a> for a federal appeals court to decide whether the denials can stand. In its most recent <a href="http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/permits_ej_operations_pdf/northaccesspipe42017.pdf" target="_blank">permit rejection</a>, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said "FERC disregarded the Department's concerns." Based on its experiences with gas pipeline construction, the state agency predicted "significant degradation of water quality in stream after stream."</p><p>U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Democrat from New Jersey, wants to see reforms earlier in the process—when FERC is still deliberating. Pressed by residents upset about PennEast, she sponsored <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2649/text" target="_blank">legislation</a> in May that would require evidentiary hearings in contested cases and regular, big-picture reviews of need.</p><p>Absent a state veto or major changes at FERC, there's little a landowner can do to stop the construction juggernaut, as Jeb Bell learned. He and his brother didn't want the Sabal Trail pipeline burrowing beneath their tree farm in Mitchell County, Georgia, so the company took them to court twice—first to get permission to survey the land and then to build on it. Sabal Trail, largely owned by Enbridge, won each time. It also fought off the Bells' counterclaim contending the company had trespassed on their land.</p><p>Then the company <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3883789-Order-Regarding-Bells-First-Appeal.html" target="_blank">won the right</a> to collect legal fees from the Bells—$47,258 in all. </p><p>Enbridge spokeswoman Andrea Grover said by email that Sabal Trail is entitled to the money because it had offered to settle the "baseless" trespass claim; the brothers turned it down.</p><p>Bell, a state-park manager, has no idea how he'll pay if his appeal fails. He can't imagine a multibillion-dollar company needing his money. What it wanted, he's sure, was to send a warning to other landowners: Don't even try to stop pipelines. They always win.</p><p><em>Marie Cusick of <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/" target="_blank">StateImpact Pennsylvania</a> contributed to this story.</em></p>
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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released its Final Environmental Impact Statement Friday for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a controversial 303-mile pipeline that would carry two billion cubic feet of fracked gas per day from West Virginia through Virginia.
<p>As has been the pattern at FERC, the review fails to adequately assess whether the pipeline is needed in the first place, while sweeping aside the project's serious threats to water resources, the safety of communities and the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate</a>.</p><p><a href="http://priceofoil.org/" target="_blank">Oil Change International</a> research analyst Kelly Trout had the following response to FERC's deeply flawed climate assessment:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">In this utterly insufficient review, FERC ignores both science and economics to sweep aside the Mountain Valley Pipeline's significant climate impact. FERC severely undercounts climate pollution by ignoring <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane">methane</a> leakage across the gas supply chain, which makes gas as dirty or dirtier than <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a>, and by omitting emissions from upstream <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/">fracking</a>. FERC also wrongly assumes that gas supplied by the project is likely to replace coal, when it's just as likely to lock out the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">clean energy</a> and efficiency alternatives we urgently need.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">If FERC was doing its job, it would find the Mountain Valley Pipeline will cause an unacceptable increase in climate pollution and reject this dirty project. A proper <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2017/02/15/mountain-valley-pipeline-greenhouse-gas-emissions-briefing/" target="_blank">analysis</a> shows that this pipeline will cause as much climate pollution as 26 coal plants per year. This project is the last thing we need in the face of worsening heatwaves and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding">flooding</a>, and when clean alternatives are readily available now.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">Concerned residents continue to fight this dirty pipeline because it's a clear threat to local livelihoods, clean water and our climate. It's time for FERC to completely overhaul its pipeline review process to prioritize the safety of communities and our climate, not the profits of corporate polluters.</p><p>In a recent <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2017/02/15/mountain-valley-pipeline-greenhouse-gas-emissions-briefing/" target="_blank">study</a>, Oil Change International found that the Mountain Valley Pipeline will cause nearly 90 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution per year, which is the equivalent of 26 coal plants or 19 million vehicles on the road. The study applied a gas pipeline climate <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2017/02/08/gas-pipeline-climate-methodology/" target="_blank">methodology</a> that is based on the latest analysis of the lifecycle pollution of fracked gas from the Appalachian Basin.</p>
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