Washington, DC -- This afternoon, the House of Representatives voted to pass two bills, pushed by Congressional Republicans, that would fast-track approval of cross-border and interstate oil and gas pipelines.
The “Promoting Cross-Border Energy Infrastructure Act,” H.R. 2883, would eliminate the current requirement that cross-border oil and gas pipelines obtain a presidential permit and give permitting responsibility to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). This would eliminate the need for projects to be deemed in America’s national interest and effectively exempt cross-border projects from meaningful environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Similarly, the “Promoting Interagency Coordination for Review of Natural Gas Pipelines Act,” H.R. 2910, aims to allow FERC to limit the scope of environmental reviews of proposed interstate pipelines and ignore input from other federal agencies and state and local governments.
In response, Kelly Martin, Deputy Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, issued the following statement:
“With these bills, the House voted today to give a massive handout to the oil and gas industry that is filling their campaign coffers. When dirty fossil fuel infrastructure is approved without meaningful environmental review or public participation, corporate polluters win and the public loses.
“For too long, FERC has acted as a rubber stamp for gas pipelines, approving unneeded fracked gas pipelines that take private land for corporate gain and lock Americans into higher electricity rates while increasing our dependency on fossil fuels for decades to come. By further empowering this agency to fast-track pipeline approval and ignore public input and environmental consequences, Congress has done a serious disservice to the health and safety of the public and our climate.”
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