Category: Blog

Six months ago, few average Marylanders had heard of “Cove Point,” let alone understood the stakes for our communities and climate. Now, the fight to stop Dominion Resources’ proposed fracked gas export facility on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland is making state and national headlines.
The issue broke onto the national scene in January when national climate leader and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben coauthored A Big Fracking Lie in Politico Magazine with CCAN’s director Mike Tidwell. The opinion piece was a big (anti-)fracking success and, at more than 10,000 shares, it was one of the most shared Politico pieces in January. The piece explained in detail why Cove Point would be a disaster for our climate, spurring a new wave of fracking in the mid-Atlantic and causing climate polluting emissions equivalent to burning coal, and challenged President Obama to abandon his support for fracked gas exports.

Continue reading

The Huffington Post
by Caroline Selle
There was a time when “Stop the Keystone XL!” seemed like an unlikely rallying cry for the U.S. environmental movement. After all, plenty of pipelines receive permits every year without much outrage, so why would TransCanada’s request be any different? Plus, the fuel was coming from Canada, the country’s friendly northern neighbor. What could be the downside?
Plenty, according to environmental advocates. From the First Nations people who live near extraction sites in Canada, to Nebraskan farmers and ranchers concerned about the pipeline crossing a major aquifer, to families who live in Texas neighborhoods polluted by refineries, lots of people have a stake in the fight. And for climate activists, the pipeline is a test of the Obama administration’s seriousness about cutting greenhouse gas emissions and ending reliance on fossil fuels. The pipeline quickly became a symbol of resistance and the center of the fight over climate policy.
If the Keystone XL is approved (an answer is expected as soon as late May), what will the U.S. environmental movement rally around next? The power plant rules that the Environmental Protection Agency is working on will be an important step in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but there’s no clear “ask,” as organizers like to say, other than “please finalize them.”
Enter the Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. Located in Lusby, Md., Cove Point sits on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, only a 90-minute drive from Washington, D.C. Local environmental groups want to make Cove Point the next Keystone XL when it comes to organizing opposition.
Continue reading

WAMU 88.5
By: Jonathan Wilson
The Maryland Public Service commission is in the midst of deciding whether Dominion can move forward with a $3.8 billion expansion of its Cove Point Liquefied Natural Gas facility in Calvert County and environmental groups continue to put pressure on state officials to reject the plan.
Hundreds of protesters gathered on War Memorial Plaza in downtown Baltimore, many holding signs with anti-fracking slogans, or mini cardboard windmills to show their support for energy alternatives.
Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, compared the current fight to stop Dominion’s natural gas export plans to the battle, decades ago, to get the truth out about the health risks of tobacco.
“And that’s why we need an Environmental Impact Statement, because it is the equivalent of a Surgeon General’s report,” Tidwell said. “We need a Surgeon General’s report for Cove Point, when that comes out, Marylanders will be appalled and repelled by this idea and it won’t get built.”
But Dominion maintains that voices like Tidwell’s are simply a vocal minority, and point out that exporting more natural gas is part of the President’s clean energy agenda.
Jeff Guido is a spokesman for the Maryland state pipe trades association — a union whose members would get many of the thousands of construction jobs that would come with the project. He says the economic benefits of Cove Point would ripple across the state.
“We need it, we need it bad,” Guido said. “You’ll see that when a construction worker goes to work, and he knows he’s got some employment in front of him — they’re all gonna go out and buy a new pick up truck, it’s just what we do.”
After this week’s evidentiary hearing, the Public Service Commission will gather input from residents close to Cove point at a public hearing in Lusby on March 1.

The Baltimore Sun
By Jamie Smith Hopkins
An estimated 500 people rallied Thursday in Baltimore against plans to export liquefied natural gas from a Southern Maryland facility, chanting and carrying signs past the office tower where state regulators were considering one aspect of that proposal.
The authority to approve or reject the project lies with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But Maryland’s Public Service Commission has the say over a 130-megawatt power plant that energy company Dominion says it needs for the export operation.
The proposal has drawn powerful support — including from Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Southern Maryland Democrat — as well as opposition from the Sierra Club and other groups, largely on environmental grounds. Both sides used this week’s hearings as an opportunity to get their message out.
Dominion, which owns the Cove Point complex, held a news conference Wednesday with supporters, including a construction union official and a Maryland manufacturer. They characterized the project as an economic boon and said exporting natural gas to replace coal would help the environment.
The rally against the project drew people from across the state — many opposed to a controversial technique known as “fracking” used to extract natural gas — and temporarily closed streets in downtown Baltimore at lunchtime. Speakers included Del. Heather Mizeur, a Democrat who is running for governor.
“I’ve been doing this for 12 years,” said Mike Tidwell, executive director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network, which helped organize Thursday’s event and estimated the crowd at about 700. “I’ve never been at an environmental rally … this big.”
A police spokesman could not provide a crowd estimate Thursday. Dominion spokesman Chet Wade said it counted fewer than 300 people.
Opponents contend that exporting natural gas from Cove Point would increase demand for hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting the gas that environmentalists say pollutes groundwater and air but that the industry says is safe.
Dominion officials said the project should not be seen as a “proxy” for fracking, including whether to allow the method in Maryland. Cove Point exports could come from as far afield as the Gulf Coast through the country’s network of pipelines, said Pamela F. Faggert, the company’s chief environmental officer.
“Nor would stopping the Cove Point project likely reduce fracking elsewhere,” Faggert said. “Cove Point exports would account for only a small sliver of the gas that could be produced in the United States. Without Cove Point, the only question is where the natural gas would go instead.”
That argument didn’t fly with rally participants. Paul Roberts, who runs a winery in Western Maryland and sits on the state commission studying fracking, said he’s concerned the state will be under far more pressure to allow the technique if natural gas interests can export from Cove Point.
“It would be very terrible if all the work we’ve put in is undermined,” Roberts said.
Cove Point is an import facility for liquefied natural gas. The market for bringing that product into the country has dwindled as fracking fueled a natural gas boom in the U.S.
Expanding Dominion’s Calvert County complex to allow exporting would cost as much as $3.8 billion. The company would pay an additional $40 million in annual property taxes for five years, then receive a tax break of 42 percent for nine years.
Drew Greenblatt, president of Marlin Steel Wire Products, a Baltimore manufacturer, is among those who spoke in favor of Cove Point at Dominion’s news conference.
“A thriving natural gas industry, one with access to all potential markets, including overseas markets … will mean more demand for our products in America,” he said. “We should take advantage of it, and we’re very lucky that this has happened to our state.”
Hearings in the Public Service Commission case began Thursday. A hearing for public comment is scheduled for March 1 at Patuxent High School in Lusby, near Cove Point.
The agency must make a decision on the power plant by May 30. The FERC has not set a timeline for a decision, Dominion said.
The early hours of Thursday’s hearing revolved around the project’s impact. Sierra Club attorney Joshua Berman, highlighting reports suggesting that exporting would cause domestic natural gas prices to rise and promote the use of coal, asked a Dominion executive whether he agreed with those conclusions.
Michael D. Frederick, vice president of LNG operations at Cove Point, said the U.S. Department of Energy — which gave Cove Point its OK to export — is charged with ensuring that the move is in the country’s interests.

On February 20th, hundreds of activists from across the mid-Atlantic will come to Baltimore to rally outside the Public Service Commission as they decide on key permits for the proposed Cove Point facility.
If you haven’t already, sign up to join us and be a part of the biggest environmental rally Baltimore has ever seen.
As we get ready for February 20th, we’ve asked a few activists coming to the rally to tell us their story and explain why this issue is so important to them.
What’s your name? Vivian Stockman
What’s your age? 52
Where do you live? Roane County, WV
What do you do for a living? I work for OVEC, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, based in Huntington, WV, www.ohvec.org.
Why is Cove Point important to you? How will your immediate community be affected? Is there already fracking in your neighborhood or do you live in an area that has a gas basin beneath it?
For years, OVEC members have been working to end mountaintop removal coal mining and coal prep plant waste “disposal” via underground coal slurry injection or giant coal sludge dams. We do this work because these extreme coal industry practices are ruining human health and destroying and poisoning our life support systems – our water, land and air. As deep shale gas fracking moved into West Virginia, we began working on this issue too, for the exact same reasons. People are getting sick and once pleasant rural communities are turned into industrial waste zones.
What is your biggest concern surrounding the Cove Point project?
Cove Point would drastically increase the pressure to drill, baby, drill, no matter the consequences. Cove Point would mean a mad dash to export natural gas and that ultimately would mean that our birthright here in West Virginia, clean water, would be sacrificed for the sake of short-term corporate profit.
What message would you deliver to the fossil fuel industry and the folks at Dominion?
Clean water is essential to life. As your industries continue to use our streams, rivers and groundwater for dumping toxic waste, you are creating a vast network of people from all walks of life who are rising up. Water unites us. Poison water unites us in action. We will defend our right to clean water, and we demand truly cleaner renewable energy now. We stand in this defense, we make this demand as if our lives depend on it, for they do.
Remember to sign up now to join Vivian and hundreds of other activists in Baltimore on February 20th. We’ll see you there!

Maryland
Last week, CCAN Director Mike Tidwell made huge news with a piece he co-wrote with Bill McKibben entitled, “A Big Fracking Lie.” The article has been shared almost 10,000 times on Politico and is one of the highest shared pieces of 2014. In it, Mike takes the Cove Point fight national, explaining why exporting fracked natural gas is a bad deal for Americans. Read it and share it with all your friends who are concerned about fracking!

Continue reading