Stop Manchin's FERC — May 18th Washington D.C
[FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) is the Federal agency that approves (all the time) and could (but never does) disapprove the licensing of new pipelines for oil and unnatural gas. (If you have to pour tons of chemicalized water under high pressure in “fracking” rock to get out burnable gas, meanwhile releasing the intensively heat-trapping gas methane into Earth’s air, that is by my standard not “natural” gas.)
There has been a long campaign by devoted activists to change the political makeup of FERC so that it applies serious standards to whether the proposed pipelines are poisoning Earth. For a moment it looked as if that was working, when President Biden tried to reappoint its independent-minded chair-person. But Senator Manchin, who chairs the Senate Committee on Energy, worked with Republicans to stymie this appointment.
So there has been a call for committed nonviolent demonstrations (with opportunities to risk arrest and opportunities for protest that does not risk arrest) on May 18 to protest FERC’s rubber-stamping of Carbon Pharaohs’ bringing plagues upon us – fire, flood, famine, disease. The Shalom Center supports this effort. A fuller description follows. It includes a link to register if you want to join this action. With blessings of shalom,
— Arthur ]
Stop Manchin's FERC
May 18th — Washington D.C.
Off Fossil Fuels, Onto Clean Renewables, Environmental Justice and Democratic Participation Now!
Since March of last year, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has been working with Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee which he chairs to prevent any substantive change at FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They must stop their rubber stamping of methane gas pipelines and LNG projects!
Here’s what Manchin has been and is doing, right now:
- March 2022: He forced FERC commissioners to retract a new policy announced in February 2022 to require methane gas permit applications to include substantive environmental justice and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions analysis, and improved economic needs analysis. Since that retraction Manchin’s FERC has approved over 50 new coal plants worth of GHG in new methane gas infrastructure.
- Fall 2022: Manchin refused to hold a hearing on President Biden’s re-nomination of then FERC Chair Richard Glick (who led the effort to analyze GHG and environmental justice).
- December 2022: Chair Glick’s term expired and he was replaced as chair by the most conservative of the remaining Democrats, Willie Phillips, who as former DC Public Service Commission chair was responsible for the continuing methane infrastructure build-out being perpetrated by Washington Gas.
- Starting April 20 and continuing to May 11: Manchin is holding four Senate ENR committee hearings: one with DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm, one with Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland, one with the four FERC commissioners, and a final one being billed as an “Energy Permitting Oversight Hearing.”
Manchin’s agenda is clear. He intends to make another effort after his failures last year to force through Congressional legislation to fast track coal, oil and gas expansion and suppress clean renewables like wind and solar. He wants the Mountain Valley Pipeline to be completed and in operation asap. He wants more and more LNG export terminals to be built in the Gulf and elsewhere to ship dirty and dangerous methane gas around the world. He and his Republican allies are an immediate threat to our overheating planet and all of its life forms.
It is clearly a time to rise up and fight back at FERC! On Thursday, May 18, one week after the last of Manchin’s four hearings, on the day that the FERC commissioners have their monthly meeting, we urgently invite you to attend and help build a big turnout of people to demonstrate outside the FERC building. Some of us will engage in nonviolent direct action to demand that FERC stop kowtowing to Manchin and the climate denying/greenwashing fossil fuel agenda.
We call for President Biden to declare a climate emergency and use his Presidential powers to counter the Manchin/Republican agenda, take action for environmental justice and a rapid shift away from fossil fuels to clean renewables.
Our deepening climate emergency and the health and safety of impacted communities calls out for actions like this one at FERC. We hope you agree and will want to help, in whatever way you can, to make the 18th of May a big day for climate justice.
Let’s take action to Stop Manchin’s FERC with joy, determination and love for our wounded earth and its peoples!