Anti-fossil fuel radicals behaved badly, as they usually do, at yesterday’s New Jersey Pinelands Commission meeting. Using “whistles, cowbells and shouts,” and holding “Pinocchio noses to their faces,” radical antis from groups like the Sierra Club tried to bully commissioners into denying approval of a $130 million, 28-mile natural gas pipeline proposed by New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG) to connect NJNG’s distribution system serving customers in Ocean, Burlington and Monmouth counties (in NJ) and the interstate pipeline system adjacent to the New Jersey Turnpike. Spoiled, rotten-acting children grow up to be spoiled, rotten-acting adults. Ever notice that truism? The pipeline runs through 12 miles of scrub pines that are “protected” in NJ. The “Southern Reliability Link” pipeline project, as it is called, is meant to provide a backup for hundreds of thousands of NJ residents who lost access to natural gas following Super Storm Sandy. Such reliability makes no difference to radicals (many of them out-of-state) who irrationally hate all fossil fuels. The Sierra Club sued to stop the project. The courts ruled that the Commission would need to hold a full vote on whether to approve it, so the Commission held a public hearing in July (see Antis Oppose Tiny Pipeline Thru Scrub Pines in N NJ at Hearing). Yesterday the full Commission voted, 8 to 4 (with 1 abstention), to approve the Southern Reliability Link. Finally! Of course the radicals say they will now launch yet another frivolous lawsuit to try and stop it, claiming the Commission “ignored the law” in approving the project. No, Sierra Club, YOU are the ones who continually ignore the law…
