Posted on 08/12/2020 5:39:01 PM PDT by karpov
Environmental activists have taken their campaigns into the U.S. legal system and political arenas to stall energy infrastructure buildout. Just last week, New Hampshire’s Liberty Utility abandoned plans for a $340 million natural gas pipeline following public and political pressure.
A spokeswoman for environmental group 350 New Hampshire said of the development that being able to “prevent new infrastructure from being built is a win in itself."
These efforts have become obvious in the last two months, as Americans witnessed billions of dollars’ worth of pipeline projects aimed at supplying U.S. energy markets being abandoned, delayed or ordered to temporarily shut down.
Using the power of the courts, environmental advocacy groups like Sierra Club and the National Resource Defense Council have managed to stymie a number of important energy projects in the name of environmental protection and climate change.
Projects including the Keystone XL, Dakota Access and Atlantic Coast Pipeline have all, in one way or another, become a cause célèbre for activists. However, manipulating the permitting process and leveraging the courts to effectively raise capital costs and create lethal project uncertainty is a “win no matter the cost” approach that could have serious impacts on our nation’s energy security and environmental goals.
While the crux of the Keystone XL pipeline case dealt with tensions over interagency consultation, environmental groups sued the lead agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Montana federal court to prevent the use of an important permitting program for the project. The ruling stripped the Corps of its ability to grant permits for any construction project under the Nationwide Permit 12 program — a huge overreach. In fact, Judge Brian Morris’s ruling would have halted as many as 70 oil and gas pipeline projects.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
There has to be a penalty for losing.
l8r
The US is the only country where the lawsuit loser DOES NOT pay.
It was a totally ridiculous lawsuit. A section of the Appalachian trail in a remote mountain area would have been crossed by the pipeline. Maybe 100 foot right of way max. The Appalachian trail is already transected by dozens of pipelines, roads, railways, electrical transmission lines, even towns.
The percentage of Americans who would have been impacted by the pipeline crossing the trail is beyond miniscule, Most Americans will never ever set foot on the trail, let alone a remote area.
On the otherhand, halting the pipeline impacts millions of people. Not only higher energy costs, but it impacts jobs in impoverished Appalachia. But then again, white people live in Appalachia, so they don't matter. </sarc>
It was a totally ridiculous lawsuit. A section of the Appalachian trail in a remote mountain area would have been crossed by the pipeline. Maybe 100 foot right of way max. The Appalachian trail is already transected by dozens of pipelines, roads, railways, electrical transmission lines, even towns.
The percentage of Americans who would have been impacted by the pipeline crossing the trail is beyond miniscule, Most Americans will never ever set foot on the trail, let alone a remote area.
On the otherhand, halting the pipeline impacts millions of people. Not only higher energy costs, but it impacts jobs in impoverished Appalachia. But then again, white people live in Appalachia, so they don't matter. </sarc>
“...The US is the only country where the lawsuit loser DOES NOT pay.....”
A change of THAT right there would put an end to all their frivolous BS.
Interesting fact: When the rolling brownouts hit CA a few years ago, those same tree-huggers were bitching because they could turn on their air conditioners. Kill the natural gas pipeline projects and those people in New England will eventually freeze their butts off. Karma’s a bitch.
When I was a boy, my father and I on weekends hiked about 10 miles of the Appalachian Trail outside DC. It is a beautiful trail that goes on for more than a thousand miles north and south. No way would we hike the whole trail but I suppose we could have if we planned for it.
So you’re right, there are likely huge portions of the trail that scarcely see a hiker.
But even so, a carved out channel for pipelines could be made with suitable rockeries and plants for esthetics, could be made with small overhead crossings for hikers and park ranger vehicles, could be done easily and no one would know the difference. The channel could be regulated to that all suppliers could lease pipeline capacity from US Parks, would be controlled and minimal.
Could be done.
Those were already covered.
They are simply opposed to any use of fossil fuels, and will do any thing to stop and degrade current use.
They are modern Luddites, worshiping Gaia,impervious to logic or reason that contradicts their "Humans Bad" "climate change" fable.
I know but we need more people to know and they need to have the counterarguments.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3871983/posts?page=55#55
I wish the phrase ‘fossil fuels’ would go away and the correct term “hydrocarbons’ used in its place.
Hydrocarbons are primordial material, a subject covered at length in Thomas Gold’s “The Deep Hot Biosphere”.
You are absolutely correct and I think It will happen as awareness continues to grow.
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