8/10/2019 Ground Zero - Civil Society Resistance: Train Wreck Alert

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/ground-zero-civil-society-resistance-train-wreck-alert 1/2

Nearly 100 people from across the country participated in a nonviolent direct action protest thismorning shutting down the office of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) inWashington, DC. Today’s action was led by some of the Great March for Climate Action marchers

who arrived at the nation’s capital on Nov. 1 after a 3,000-mile cross country walk from LosAngeles, California to Washington, DC. Police say 25 people were arrested this morning.

More than 50 organizations endorse this week of action and demands in the face of “ongoingthreats to their health, communities, democracy, property values, environment and climate:”

1. We demand FERC withdraw its permit for the dangerous fracked-gas export facility at CovePoint, as well as recent gas expansion permits at Myersville, Minisink and Seneca Lake. In addition,we demand a stop to the permitting of all fracked-gas export facilities and other fracked-gasinfrastructure.

2. We demand that all future FERC permits:

• Consider as the top priority the rights of human beings and all life on Earth;

• Fully assess the cumulative harm from infrastructure projects on public health, localeconomies and the climate. FERC must consider the damage from fracking–the extremeextraction process that generates the gas for these projects–and from climate change. FERCmust reject industry’s practice of disguising major projects by dividing them into separate,ostensibly unrelated ones.

• Adhere to the precautionary principle: in the face of uncertainty and the absence ofscientific consensus, the benefit of the doubt will go to public health and the environment. Theburden of proof that a project is safe falls with those proposing the project; communities will

not need to prove that a project is harmful.3. We demand FERC commissioners meet with communities affected by approved and proposed fossilfuel infrastructure, including the Cove Point export facility, Myersville and Minisink compressorstations, and Seneca Lake gas storage project. This is a key step in changing FERC from an agencythat protects only interests of the fossil fuel industry to one that protects the public interest.

4. We demand a Congressional investigation into FERC’s rubber stamping of industry proposals.

Douglas Grandt <answerthecall@icloud.com>

Rex Tillerson <Rex.W.Tillerson@ExxonMobil.com>, David Rosenthal <David.S.Rosenthal@exxonmobil.com>

Ground Zero - civil society resistance: train wreck alert

 

2 Attachments, 1.1 MB

8/10/2019 Ground Zero - Civil Society Resistance: Train Wreck Alert

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/ground-zero-civil-society-resistance-train-wreck-alert 2/2

Breaking: 25 Arrested Shutting Down FERC Office in DC

Stefanie Spear  | November 3, 2014 9:42 am |  http://bit.ly/EcoWatch03Nov  (continued from above)

“We walked 3,000 miles across the country and heard firsthand from families and communities thehardships they are facing due to extreme energy extraction,” said Faith Meckley, one of theclimate marchers who lives in New York state.

Meckley said she’s participating in these actions because FERC rubber stamped a methane gasstorage facility on the shore of New York’s Seneca Lake that allows methane storage in unstablesalt caverns that threatens her community.

Other people who took part in today’s action said they have had enough of FERC rubber stampingfracking infrastructure projects in their communities, including pipelines, gas storage under lakes,compressor stations and fracked gas export facilities.

Today’s action used a massive portrait of families from Maryland and New York whose homes andcommunities are threatened by fracking infrastructure that has been approved by FERC. A modeltown was erected as part of the action which blocked the entrance to FERC preventing employeesfrom entering the building.

“The object of the blockade art is to give FERC no other option but to destroy the town andfamilies in order to get to work,” said Kim Fraczek of Sane Energy Project of New York. “Thedestruction of the art serves a metaphor of reality.”