Antis Ask NY Senators to Beseech Lord Obama to Stop AIM Pipeline
The irrational demands of radicals in New York State are getting out of hand. In March New York’s spineless Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to stop work on the Algonquin Incremental Marketing (AIM) pipeline project because it comes close to an existing nuclear power plant (see Gov. Cuomo Asks FERC to Halt Algonquin Pipeline Near Nuke Plant). A few days later the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) told Gov. Andy to stuff it (see FERC Denies NY Request to Stop Work on Pipeline Near Nuke Plant). Following FERC’s denial, some of the worst of the worst Big Green groups, including Riverkeeper Inc., Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch sued to stop it (see Radical Enviro Groups File Appeal to Stop AIM Pipeline in NY/CT). Apparently that effort is either taking too long, or the radicals believe it’s not going to work, because they are now calling it “an emergency” and demanding New York’s far-left U.S. Senators, Chuck “the schmuck” Schumer and Kirsten “nobody ever heard of her” Gillibrand “carry the message” to the White House to stop the AIM project. That is, they want High Lord Obama to issue another one of his illegal Executive Orders or lean on FERC to stop the AIM project…
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How do you deal with people who are bullies and refuse to compromise? Answer: You defeat them and don’t give an inch in doing so. Crestwood Equity Partners (used to be Crestwood Midstream) bought a project years ago called Finger Lakes LPG–a proposed liquefied petroleum gas (i.e. propane) storage facility along the shoreline of Seneca Lake in beautiful Upstate New York. Seneca is one of the Finger Lakes. The facility would be built in a former, now depleted, salt mining operation. Salt mining was far more dangerous for the environment than a proposed underground propane storage facility would ever be–but you didn’t hear a peep about the salt mining operation from nutty environmentalists at the time. We’ve endlessly covered the antics of people like Sandra Steingraber–a professional anti-fracking agitator paid and on the staff of Ithaca College (funded by the Park Foundation). Steingraber opposes the Finger Lakes LPG facility because she has a visceral (and irrational) hatred for all fossil fuels–even though her house is heated with them, the school she “works” at is heated with them, the vehicle she drives is powered by them, etc. ad nauseum. Steingraber and dozens of others have been arrested a number of times for blocking the entrance to the facility. In a bid to compromise and address the concerns of Steingraber and others, Crestwood has, in our opinion, made a mistake. On Monday Crestwood sent a letter to the completely dysfunctional NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) offering to scale back the LPG storage project–removing rail and truck shipments in and out of the facility–one of the major objections by Steingraber and other ninny nannies opposing the project. So what does the anti group “Gas Free Seneca” say to Crestwood’s gracious offer to meet them more than half way? They figuratively spit in the face of Crestwood. They demand the facility never get built. That’s the actions of bullies and profoundly unreasonable (not able to be reasoned with) people. Which is why we say, they must be totally, utterly, and completely defeated…
We have been making the point, loudly, for the past year, that IF New York State blocks the Constitution Pipeline, as they have now done, the state runs the very real risk of having the federal government strip away their right to make such decisions about any federally-approved pipeline project. We’ve previously warned that New York is in grave danger of losing their power by attempting to block the Constitution. We wrote the following in October 2015: When MDN editor Jim Willis attended the Shale Insight conference in Philadelphia in September, he listened to a panel discussion of midstream (pipeline) experts, including a former FERC commissioner. He got to ask a question and the question, roughly, was this: “The NY DEC is currently holding up the FERC-approved Constitution Pipeline. What if the DEC refuses to issue the necessary permits? What happens next?” The answer Jim got was, “It depends.” The bottom line seems to be that it’s likely FERC (and Williams) will need to take the DEC to court. The DEC frankly has no legal right to prevent a federally approved project from being built. That’s the bottom line. It may take a court to force the DEC (and Gov. Cuomo) to act, but in this matter the law is on our side. This is not a question of “if,” it is a question of “when” the pipeline will get built (see 
In July 2015 Williams filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the $130 million New York Bay Expansion project, which will flow Marcellus gas to 500,000 additional New York City residents by the 2017/2018 heating season (see 
National Fuel Gas (NFG), the Buffalo-based utility giant with both a drilling subsidiary (Seneca Resources) and a midstream/pipeline subsidiary (Empire Pipeline) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March 2015 for a pipeline project they call Northern Access 2016 (later renamed to simply Northern Access Project, dropping the “2016” part). The $455 million project includes building 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern Pennsylvania up to Erie County, NY. The project also calls for 3 miles of new pipeline further up, in Niagara County, along with a new compressor station in the Town of Pendleton (see 
As we reported yesterday, last Friday Williams and the Constitution Pipeline filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend their application to build the Constitution Pipeline from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY (see 
