The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued their “Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement” (SEIS), mandated on August 22, 2017, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, as a result of a legal challenge by Sierra Club.
This landmark decision has, temporarily, at least, changed FERC’s traditional rubber-stamp permit issuing factory to some semblance of accountability. The federal court stated that FERC was responsible for factoring in the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) resulting from their LPN transportation activities.
Running true to form, FERC states in the new SEIS that, “We also conclude that… operating the SMP Project would not result in a significant impact on the environment.”
FERC also states that they are unable to comply with the directive form the U.S. Court of Appeals in estimating the “…localized or regional impacts from the GHGs…” because they have no tools to determine such. Neither are they able to determine the effects of the GHGs on the environment, because they could not “…identify a reliable, less complex model for this task…”
The best they can do is estimate that the downstream effects of their activities might increase GHGs by 3.7 to 9.7 percent. At the high end, that is almost ten percent. Is that not enough to undercut that misleading, alternative fact statement above, indicating no significant impact on the environment?
Ten percent more destruction, ten percent more poison, ten percent more of our planet destroyed, ten percent more of our healthy resources gone to Hell because some rich tycoons they don’t already have enough money?
They think 10 per cent is not significant. If their salaries were cut ten per cent, they might think that is significant.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
-A river is like a life: once taken, it cannot be brought back-
