Well, whaddaya know. It seems like the protest of the Palomar Pipeline the other week definitely caught NW Natural's attention. They will be holding a public meeting this Thursday:
The Public Meeting will be held at NW Natural, 220 NW Second, 4th Floor Hospitality East Room: 6-7PM.
Please forward this info to, like, everyone you know in the general Pacific Northwest. The more people who know about it, the more people who will show. I, for one, hope the room is SRO and overflowing down the stairs.
Why am I on and on and on about this? First and foremost, Mt. Hood is !@#$%& exquisite. And really, is there anything that needs to be said beyond "they want to build new roads in the Mt. Hood National Forest for this"? I could go through the litany of accidents in Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere, but I'd just be preaching to the choir; we all know we have to get off the fossil fuels and substituting one for the other only prolongs the inevitable crash. But that's a whole other diary best left to those more expert than I.
What we can all do right now is contact our Congresscritters and tell each chamber to pass their respective bills on the question of restoring authorizing decisions to the state and not a buncha Washington wonks who have never set foot in the states their decisions affect. In my heart, I call it the "Fuck FERC" campaign. ; P
Senate:
3/2/2010--Introduced. Amends the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to repeal provisions amending the Natural Gas Act to extend its jurisdiction to:
(1) the exportation or importation of natural gas in foreign commerce and to persons engaged in it; and
(2) liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals. States that the Natural Gas Act shall be applied and administered as if such provisions and attendant amendments had not been enacted.
House:
The bill repeals a provision in the 2005 Energy bill that gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the exclusive authority to site LNG facilities.
U.S. Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and James Langevin (D-RI) are original co-sponsors of the bill. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has introduced the legislation in the Senate.
FERC does not currently seek adequate input from states in LNG siting reviews, and governors lack veto authority for onshore LNG terminals, despite having that authority for offshore terminals under the Deepwater Port Act. Although states and localities face all the potential risks and impacts of a LNG facility, they lack an equal voice in the siting and approval process. Prior to the 2005 Energy Bill, such decisions had historically been made by siting agencies in each state.
So please call your Congresscritters and the relevant committees; the Senate version is currently floating around the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. And please send this far and wide, so everyone calls Congress; this isn't just Oregon. And please, pretty pretty please, write letters to the editor, especially if you are in Oregon.
uNf!