Background: This coming week, Mitch McConnell could win a big victory for the fossil fuel industry by getting the Senate to approve Trump’s nominations of fossil fuel industry supporters Robert Powelson and Neil Chatterjee to become FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) commissioners*. Chatterjee and Powelson would make FERC, already-a-rubber-stamp-agency for new fracked gas pipelines and infrastructure, even worse.
Bill McKibben, How to Tell if Your Reps Are Serious about Climate Change, Rolling Stone: “Standing up to natural gas will be hard, because it’s where the fossil-fuel industry increasingly concentrates its investments. And it’s easy for politicians to play rhetorical games here: If you just talk about ‘carbon,’ then gas looks good. But physics, again, is unimpressed by spin. It just adds up all the greenhouse gases in the air, and then it does its thing. Our job is to make sure that truly clean power comes next – we can’t waste another few decades playing around with gas.”
Sens. Schumer & Gillibrand: “I am calling to you to vote against President Trump’s two nominees, Neil Chatterjee and Robert Powelson, to be commissioners of FERC. Powelson and Chatterjee’s records make clear that they will do little or nothing to stop FERC’s rubber-stamping approval of fracked gas pipelines. Please continue to stand up for our climate, against eminent domain abuse and for clean air and water by voting “no” to these FERC nominees.”
*Note: There is a third vacancy that Democrats have proposed to fill with Richard Glick. The commission requires equal representation by Democrats and Republicans. http://www.kallanishenergy.com/2017/06/19/glick-may-be-ferc-nominee/
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