The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is back at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking, once again, to be allowed to bend the rules to the breaking point so they can keep building a fracked gas pipeline nobody wants or needs during the pandemic.
For years resistance has built against the MVP — including countless community rallies, several long-standing tree sits, and blockades by activists. Due in part to that diligent work, the MVP is behind schedule and $2 billion over budget.
This time, they are asking for special permission – a variance, in legal parlance – to drill under dozens of streams and rivers – a risky plan that could pollute hundreds of communities downstream. Not to mention the fact that the plan will require bringing in dozens of work crews, many from out-of-state, while the pandemic is surging in South Eastern Virginia – putting unnecessary strain on essential workers in food service, transportation, and other industries while over-taxing an already busy health care system.
That’s exactly what happened to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline earlier this year. And that’s why it’s so important that FERC not grant this variance right now: Not only is it irresponsible and dangerous to let MVP construction continue during the pandemic right now, but saying no at this critical juncture could just stop the pipeline for good!
All signatures received before December 21 will be included in official comments to FERC, and once you sign you’ll be redirected to a page with instructions on how to back up your signature with a hand-written comment.
Tweet at @KKR_Co and tell them just how awful they are for ignoring Wet’suwet’en concerns about their rights, the climate, land, air and water. Need some tweet inspiration? Click here!
UK callers: Call KKR by dialing (+44) 020 7839 9800 then asking the switchboard to patch you through to Johannes Huth, KKR’s Managing Director.
We know this kind of investor pressure can work: In the last few years, a number of strategic investors have pulled out of so-called liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, including Chevron, Woodside Petroleum, and even ExxonMobil. In March 2020 Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway pulled out of a LNG project in Quebec following several weeks of rail blockades in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs.
KKR hasn’t made the same decision, yet. But the fight is getting more urgent and important by the day.
As COVID-19 ravage our communities, wildfires devastate the west coast and Hurricanes pummel the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, TC Energy has continued to push onwards with Coastal GasLink pipeline construction, sending workers into “man camps” and militarized police officers onto Wet’suwet’en territories. Construction and over-policing of pipelines put these communities at greater risk. Just a week and a half ago, there was a confirmed COVID-19 case at a Coastal GasLink worksite.
Last week, Facebook blocked the accounts of hundreds of affiliated people to the #ShutDownKKR campaign, just hours before we had initially planned to host this online day of action. Although accounts have been restored, many questions are left unanswered. Today, we give KKR a reminder that we will not stop fighting to shut them down, despite their censorship tactics.
Once you’ve sent your letter, use the tools on this page to support our #ShutDownKKR communications blockade and stand with indigenous leaders to stop the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline!
Call KKR by dialing 1- 212-750-8300 and following the instructions you hear from us.
UK callers: Call KKR by dialing (+44) 020 7839 9800 then asking the switchboard to patch you through to Johannes Huth, KKR’s Managing Director.
“Hello KKR, I am calling to demand you respect the Indigenous sovereignty of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, and drop the risky Coastal GasLink pipeline immediately. The Coastal GasLink project would lock us into decades of increased fracked gas, disregarding the lack of consent by Wet’suwet’en community and the impacts to climate, air, water and the risks posed to Indigenous women by man camps built along the route. Furthermore, you are further entrenching police brutality by supporting the NYPD through investing NYPD pensions to increase their value, allowing murderous cops to comfortably retire. You are also fuelling imperialism around the world by funding Ingersoll Rand, a corporation that globally supplies hydraulic pumps to US military bases. This violence must stop.”
During the entirety of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, @TCEnergy has pushed ahead with @CoastalGasLink pipeline construction, sending more workers onto Wet’suwet’en territories, putting communities at risk of COVID-19. @KKR_Co, respect Indigenous sovereignty now! #WetsuwetenStrong
Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs are being removed from their land so @TCEnergy can build the @CoastalGasLink pipeline, despite having rights and title to the land since time immemorial! @KKR_Co, is it typically your policy to invest in Indigenous rights violations..? #ShutDownKKR
Hey @KKR_Co, your Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Responsible Investment Policy, and commitment to the @UN_SDG goals doesn’t seem to fit with kicking the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs off their territory by investing in @CoastalGasLink’s pipeline. Care to explain? #KKRGlobalImpact
.@KKR_Co investments in NYPD pension funds protect murderous cops, and @KKR_co’s investments in Ingersoll Rand, a corporation that globally supplies hydraulic pumps to US military bases, fuels western imperialism #ShutDownKKR
Last week, @Facebook blocked hundreds of accounts affiliated with the #ShutDownKKR campaign and has stated “no third party intervention” but timing is suspect. @KKR_co, do you believe in silencing tactics?
We live a in climate changed world. From the wildfires out west to the hurricanes in the east — one making landfall this week while four more are active offshore. So why is Congress rushing to approve more Trump nominees to key energy agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)? What, exactly, would it take to convince Senators to just STOP the madness and extraction?
But FERC won’t stop until Congress stops them by instituting real reforms. Will you tell the Senate Energy Commitee that this is no time for Business as usual – and demand they stop the nomination of two new FERC Commissioners this week?
Donald Trump continues to spout his nonsense and ignore science. But it’s his enablers – the agency heads and administrators that keep rolling back climate regulations and rolling out the red carpet for more fossil fuels extraction and infrastructure – who do the real damage.
The two newest nominations — Allison Clements and Mark Christie — aren’t as bad as some of the people Trump has nominated in the past. But that’s hardly the point: As long as Trump and his cronies are calling the shots, FERC will never be an agency that supports real climate action. We need bold changes, like a Green New Deal that changes FERC in to a Federal Renewable Energy Commission – and that change could be coming soon.
But until those changes come, we stand with our allies at Beyond Extreme Energy in calling upon Senators to abstain from voting for either of these nominees. Next week there will be a people’s hearing on FERC’s numerous offenses against the climate, our communities, and people. That needs to be followed quickly by real reform legislation that Congress can vote on FIRST, before they continue to feed the Fires of FERC’s climate disaster.
The MVP is a 303 mile long fracked gas pipeline that Equitrans plans to build from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Along the way it would cross the Appalachian trail, more than 1000 rivers and streams, and require clear-cutting wide tracks of the Appalachian mountains.
All signatures received before September 11 will be included in official comments to FERC, and once you sign you’ll be redirected to a page with instructions on how to back up your signature with a hand-written comment.
Right now, corporate utility National Grid is expanding a massive fracked gas transmission pipeline in North Brooklyn. This project is not a replacement of leaking pipelines, it is an expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, in the middle of a pandemic, and at the cost of our climate, communities and
And worse, we have to pay for all this pollution and destruction! National Grid wants to charge New York rate-payers millions of dollars through rate hikes for this pipeline. That money will fill their shareholders pockets, and keep us locked into fossil fuels when we want to change to affordable and clean renewable energy like geothermal, solar, wind and energy efficient buildings.
National Grid’s toxic and dangerous North Brooklyn Pipeline is being built predominantly through Black and Brown neighborhoods without community consent.
National Grid also wants to expand its Greenpoint fracked gas depot on Newtown Creek by adding two new liquefied fracked gas (LNG) vaporizers and LNG trucking capabilities. National Grid has done no assessment of the climate impacts of these projects, as is required by NYS Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, and and is ignoring or down-playing local impacts on public health and the environment.
These unnecessary projects run contrary to New York city and state’s climate goals and laws. These communities have suffered for decades from the health impacts of environmental racism and injustice, and they should not be forced to pay to build new fossil fuel infrastructure that will continue that polluted legacy for generations to come.
To add insult to injury, they are asking for an unjustified rate hike of hundreds of millions of dollars to build these unnecessary projects that will lock us into decades of fossil fuels and exorbitant stranded assets.
Revoke any permits already granted to National Grid from The City of New York for their Metropolitan Reliability Infrastructure project AKA North Brooklyn Pipeline and immediately halt construction.
Deny any permits needed by National Grid to expand their Greenpoint LNG depot.
Deny any permits and variances for National Grid’s plans for LNG trucking on NYC streets, which is currently illegal.
It would have generated more than 67 million metric tons of global warming pollution each year — the equivalent of 20 coal plants.
It would have required 38 miles of mountaintop removal and damage thousands of acres of farm and forest land.
And the ACP would disproportionately harm poor, African-American and Indigenous communities all along the route. The plan included building an enormous fracked gas compressor stations in Union Hill — an African-American community of great historical and cultural significance in Virginia. And thirty thousand Native peoples live in the project area across North Carolina.
Farrell has proven himself to be a bad corporate executive. By relying on a business model built on extraction, environmental injustice, and political corruption, he cost ratepayers and shareholders billions of dollars. But instead of firing him after the entire ACP debacle came crashing down, Dominion promoted him!
Dirty, dishonest, Dominion Energy – the principal company backing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline – is holding their annual shareholders meeting (AGM) online tomorrow, May 6. They hope that because the meeting is online this year, due to the pandemic, that we’ll stay home and not pressure them to stop investing in fossil fuels, especially the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, like we have in the past
Dominion’s wrong – and we’re showing up online tomorrow right before the shareholder meeting to give them a piece of our mind. Can you join us?
So, tomorrow, before their shareholders meeting, we’ll gather online and make some noise telling Dominion and their shareholders that it’s time to divest from fossil fuels and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Join us tomorrow (May 6) at 8:30 am before the shareholders’ meeting on zoom to take action. Together we’ll post on social media, call executives and take online action! We’ll hear reports and briefings from experts and shareholder advocates and give you all the info and talking points you need.
Duke Energy is seeking approval from the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) for a $290.8 million rate hike. If approved, the electric bill of a typical residential customer will rise by nearly $100 a year — all to pay for more dirty power, fracked gas, and pollution.
This is our chance to speak directly to NC Utilities Commissioners, the ones who oversee and regulate Duke Energy. They need to know how raising rates affects our climate and communities, especially people on fixed incomes and struggling families trying to make ends meet!
The best way to show them is to show up! Join us at the Mecklenburg county courthouse to learn more and speak out against Duke Energy’s Dirty Energy Rate Hike.
If you want to speak out, but aren’t sure what to say, check out our letter writing page, which is chock-full of talking points, facts, and links to other documents. You are also invited attending should come to our PREP MEETING on Monday, January 27th @6:30pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte (234 N. Sharon Amity Rd.) in the Conference Room. At the Prep Meeting you can get more talking points, what to expect at the hearing, how to give good testimony and how to write Letters-To-The-Editor and Letters-To-The-Commissioners.
We started the year protesting Trump’s Environmental Record – in this photo my youngest sister Emily is shutting down a hearing with Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s corrupt, climate-denying EPA chief. Ironically this hearing happened during a government shutdown that had furloughed thousands of EPA staff nation-wide. Protesting Trump’s corrupt, climate-denying cabinet is a theme of this year’s actions.
February brought an old fight back to the fore – the fight to stop Keystone XL. Trump has been trying to build the pipeline, without success, since he was sworn in in 2017. So far court cases and local permits have kept him at bay – but we’re waiting for the moment when Trump’s fossil-fueled-authoritarian tendencies overwhelm those flimsy buffers and they simply begin lighting the fuse of this carbon bomb without proper permits and paperwork.
April was also the month we launched the first of a series of campaigns that targeted David Bernhardt, Trump’s corrupt, climate-denying Interior Secretary. Like Wheeler (see above) he became a recurring character in our fight to stamp out corruption, block pollution, and protect the climate from Trump’s cast of climate conquistadors.
May also launched our campaign to get disaster relief for Puerto Rico. This became a recurring theme as Congress would appropriate money for disaster relief, but Trump would refuse to sign or disburse the money – IF, and this is a big if, the people helped by the funding were black, brown, or tended to vote for Democrats. Later in the year we broadened this campaign to include climate refugees from the Caribbean and eventually the whole global south.
Climate Strike! That was the big theme in September as we supported hundreds of Climate Strike events here in the US. Greta Thunberg asked the United Nations “How Dare You” and I personally buckled in as part of two beautifully troublesome actions.
So there you have it! A year in photos and images to illustrate all our work. You can also check out our previous post which covers more of the science and policy on how we’re ending 2019. Next week, after the New Year, I’ll write you a message about our plans for 2020 but you can be sure it will continue a few of these themes:
Holding corrupt Trump cronies like Wheeler and Bernhardt accountable;
Working as part of the global Climate Strike movement to demand bold action from our elected leaders;
Pushing US policy makers to adopt a bold, fossil-fuel-free Green New Deal; &
Bringing you great direct-action powered online campaigns at the local, state, and federal level to demand climate action.
