Contact Jeff Tittel, 609-558-9100

Congress Passes Dangerous Pipeline Bills: See How Your Rep. Voted

The House of Representatives passed two bills that could make it easier for pipelines to receive permits passed yesterday. The first bill, H.R. 2910 – Promoting Interagency Coordination for Review of Natural Gas Pipelines Act (Rep. Flores) FERC decides which agencies participate in NEPA reviews and which may not. FERC is already a rubberstamp for pipelines, now it is going to be faster and worse. This will allow FERC to limit environmental reviews even further, and expand eminent domain by making it easier to grant companies the right to take properties. By keeping out and limiting governmental reviews, it will have devastating impacts to the environment. Along with H.R. 2883, these bills will expedite environmental destructive and unnecessary pipeline proposals and make it easier to build Pilgrim Pipeline and PennEast Pipeline.

“Congress has just sold out the people of the United States to the oil and gas industry. Not only have they made it easier to build pipelines, but they are allowing gas companies to take people’s properties for eminent domain. FERC is already a rubberstamp for the fossil fuel industry, now they will be less transparent and their rubberstamp will be expedited. With this dangerous FERC bill, they will be approving more pipelines that threaten our communities and the environment without looking at any impacts. The cross-border pipeline bill will push through more pipelines like PennEast, Pilgrim, Dakota Access, and Keystone XL for export overseas,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “New Jersey is already seeing pipeline after pipeline proposal, but with this bill the Garden State will become the Pipeline State. Together these bills will devastate our environment. They will threaten our open space, clean drinking water supplies, and increase air pollution and climate impacts.”

HR 2910 even shuts out key government agencies by not allowing them to comment on and respond to pipeline applications. In the past, DEP said the Draft EIS for PennEast was incomplete, deficient, and missing all types of information. EPA and Army Corps also told FERC that their EIS is not sufficient because they haven’t gotten permission to survey most of the pipeline route. It is clear that they do not like the fact that people are standing up for their rights and fighting back, which has helped delay and ultimately stop proposals.

“Congressmen Smith, MacArthur, Frelinghuysen, Norcross and LoBiondo all voted to turn FERC into the “Federal Expedited Rubberstamp Commission.’  This bill limits the amount of information people could submit on the record and allowing drone-fly overs instead of field surveys. With this bill, they even want to expand eminent domain to make it easier to get on people’s land for surveys, even if they have not given permission.” said Jeff Tittel. “This could have implications for dozens of pipelines proposals in New Jersey like PennEast, Transco, and more. They are keeping agencies out like DEP and the U.S Fish and Wildlife because these are agencies who have questioned pipelines like PennEast and raised issues about terrible environment impacts, which has held up approvals. We thank Congresswoman Watson Coleman as well as Congressman Pallone, Pascrell, Sires, Payne, Lance, and Gottheimer for voting against this dangerous bill.”

H.R. 2883 – Promoting Cross-Border Energy Infrastructure Act (Rep. Mullin) eliminates the current requirement that proposed oil and natural gas pipelines and electric transmission lines that cross the U.S. border with Mexico or Canada obtain a presidential permit, after an environmental review and determination that the project is in the national interest. This would increase pipelines carrying North Dakota Bakken Shale oil, which is one of the most explosive types of oil in the world.

“The cross-border bill will make it easier to build pipelines like Keystone XL and Dakota Access or allow proposals like PennEast or Pilgrim to become export pipelines. Congressmen Lance and Gottheimer sided with Frelinghuysen, MacArthur, Smith, Norcross, and LoBiondo on this terrible bill. With this bill, we will see more air pollution and climate impacts, while the oil and gas are shipped overseas,” said Jeff Tittel. “We are concerned that with this bill there could be more proposals to connect pipelines like Dakota Access carrying Bakken crude to Pilgrim Pipeline. The only oil we will see from this pipeline is from a spill in our water supplies. We congratulate Congresswoman Watson Coleman as well as Congressman Pallone, Pascrell, Sires, Payne for standing up to the Fossil Fools and trying to block this bill.”

Devastating incidents around the country raise many concerns regarding the transportation of the dangerous Bakken crude whether by rail, barge, or pipeline. They could build facilities to remove this compound, but it’s cheaper to transport them through our communities. Gasoline cannot be moved by rail, the same way Bakken is yet Bakken is more volatile and flammable.

“While our communities are threatened and there won’t be clean-water to drink, Big Oil will get the money, and China or Japan will get the fuel,” said Jeff Tittel. “While world leaders are working to reduce their impact on climate change, this bill is clearly sending the United States backwards, when we have clean renewable alternatives. This not only threatens our environment, but our economy.”

Instead of transporting Bakken oil, we need to move towards renewable energy that will not damage our environment, put the community at risk, and will help to combat climate change.

“Now more than ever, the world has stood up against continuing to promote fossil fuels, but Washington refuses to listen. We must have a campaign to make sure our Senators stand up for the environment and climate change by blocking these dangerous bills. We will demand an end to dangerous and destructive pipelines and move toward a clean renewable energy future, not make it easier to destroy our communities, drinking water and open spaces,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.

You can view the final votes here:

HR 2910-http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2017/roll402.xml

HR2883- http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2017/roll398.xml