I blathered a bit about this proposed LNG pipeline in attempts to get the word out about the protest planned for the NW Natural shareholders' meeting yesterday.
I am very happy to report today that the protest was a resounding success, if you ask me. We were definitely seen by a lot of people and since one of the organizers was inside the meeting and asked questions, I know NW Natural noticed us.
Video, etc. below the fold.
We actually got a good write-up in the Oregonian:
More than 200 protesters rallied outside the Oregon Convention Center meeting site, chanting, waving placards at passing traffic, and listening to speeches from anti-LNG activists, including former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. Bradbury, the losing candidate in the democratic primary election for governor, arrived on his Segway and spoke to the crowd via bullhorn.
"I am very clearly opposed to the liquefied natural gas terminals, and I don't support pipelines for liquefied natural gas terminals," Bradbury told The Oregonian. "I don't see any reason for us to become more dependent on foreign fossil fuels."
Booyah! The proposed source of gas to feed the pipeline is to come from Canada. Hence TransCanada's interest in the Palomar company, I guess. But the point is that the Palomar pipeline, to be laid in Oregon, won't even serve Oregon really. They claim it will and if providing redundant transmission qualifies as "serving," I suppose it's true enough.
But this is about nothing but enriching the bottom lines of NW Natural and TransCanada in one last attempt to squeeze every penny out of LNG before it's all gone. They want to be able to access and control as much of the remaining supply as they can, buy it all up via contracts for transmission through their networks. This is why the death of the Bradwood terminal project hurts so bad: it was a potential expansion of their market, a terminal right on the Columbia river, where LNG transport tankers could roll on up. And all of this is why the pipeline as proposed allows for the bi-directional flow of LNG.
Millions in infrastructure spending for yesterday's technology. Check out this picture from the protest a year ago. See the big orange sign? That is the minimum height of the Palomar pipeline. That is what they want to tear up Mt. Hood to install and for what? A few more decades of a dying resource industry? NO!
At one point during the protest, some guys showed up and starting saying stuff like "What have you got against LNG? What about the jobs?" etc. I explained that we already have a pipeline and don't need this one and that renewable energy would create mad jobs. He, of course, didn't want to hear that, so he replied with "well, why are you protesting LNG, though?" So I told him that they cannot inflict permanent damage to Mt. Hood National Forest for the temporary gain of NW Natural and TransCanada.
The funniest was when I reminded him that LNG is just another fossil fuel and it will be gone one day; what do we do then? His answer was that we would stand around scratching our heads and figure it out. He looked kinda miffed at my suggestion that we solve that problem right now by transitioning to renewables in anticipation of that day. It was pretty futile, but at least they engaged civilly.
The best part of the protest was having all the cars honking in support as they drove by. My sign said "Honk if u ♥ Mt. Hood," so I like to imagine every honk was for Mt. Hood. But it was truly heartening to get that kind of response, lots of long, sustained honks and lots of enthusiastic honk-honk-honk-honk-honk! We even got a few truckers to honk with their foghorn horns and get this -- at one point, some workers in NW Natural vans drove by and honked! At least, I like to imagine it was them. It was hard to tell sometimes, but we all whooped and hollered and waved whenever someone honked for us. It was great!
Here is a video of the puppet theater part of the protest:
As wonderful as yesterday was, though, we need to focus now on the next steps of this fight. Defeating Bradwood does not mean this battle is over, as this Blue Oregon post points out. And those next steps are two bills currently floating around Congress:
S 3056, introduced by Wyden in the Senate, and HR 4922. They are basically companion pieces of legislation, each correcting yet another phenomenal fuck-up legacy of shrubCo. In 2005, something called the Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave FERC basically final say over the reliability of the nation's bulk-power system, i.e. took the power to decide yay or nay on projects away from the states affected, in the name of national security. The Wyden and McGovern bills correct that.
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, pretty please call all your Congresscritters and tell them they need to co-sponsor and pass these bills. And if you live in Oregon, please write letters to the editor and get everyone you know involved!