Last week, Sierra Club joined partners from across the country for a “Make Polluters Pay” Week of Action, a coordinated set of advocacy actions and events dedicated to holding Big Oil and Gas companies accountable for their climate mess. The week of action included rallies, press conferences, petition deliveries, meetings with legislators about state climate superfund laws, social media sharing, and more.
Today, the House of Representatives passed the “Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act,” or the SPEED Act. Rather than fixing the real barriers slowing clean energy projects, the SPEED Act weakens the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in ways that would do little to lower costs or accelerate clean energy, while making it easier for polluting projects to move forward without accountability.
The US House of Representatives passed H.R. 1949, Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2025, which would limit federal action to review the impacts of expanded liquefied methane gas exports on the economy, consumer energy costs, the climate, and local communities.
Today, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm a pair of Trump nominees, David LaCerte and Laura Swett, as commissioners to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The nominations were considered in a package with dozens of other nominees to federal posts rather than on their individual merit. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commissions is an independent agency that regulates interstate energy projects. It is responsible for ensuring that consumers are not price-gouged by energy providers.
Washington, DC - Today, the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration ended its comment period following an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on safety of methane gas exports, known as LNG. The current safeguards are meant to protect workers and communities from dangerous and volatile LNG infrastructure, but those standards have not kept pace with the growth of the industry.
Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) concluded its comment period on the 2024 LNG Export Study: Energy, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of U.S. LNG Exports. A broad coalition of local residents, fishermen, economists, environmental organizations, and veterans submitted comments telling the Trump Administration that LNG exports are not in the public interest.
Today, the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources passed the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, dubbed the “Dirty Deal,” sponsored by Senators Joe Manchin and John Barrasso. The legislation would open up federal lands and waters to more leasing and drilling and unnecessarily rush the review of proposed gas export projects, forcing decisions to be based on flawed, outdated studies.
Today, a coalition of environmental organizations and an impacted landowner backed by eight state Attorneys General and the New Jersey Ratepayer Advocate won their challenge to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of the Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project, which would allow a massive and unneeded expansion of gas capacity into New Jersey.
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit vacated, or invalidated, a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that allowed the construction of the Regional Energy Access Expansion project to expand the Transco pipeline to bring additional fracked gas from Pennsylvania to, primarily, New Jersey and Maryland.
Groups submitted a request for rehearing to challenge the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of Venture Global’s proposed methane gas export facility, CP2 LNG. FERC made the highly controversial decision at its June meeting with a slim 2-1 vote and a strong dissent from former commissioner Allison Clements. Niskanen Center submitted the request on behalf of Sierra Club and a coalition of environmental organizations and impacted community members.
The Federal Trade Commission has uncovered efforts by former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources Scott Sheffield to collude with OPEC in order to increase the price of oil through agreed up cuts in production. The conduct was discovered as part of an investigation into the $64 billion acquisition of Pioneer by Exxon Mobil, which FTC says it will not reject as long as Sheffield is not named to the board.
Today, the U.S. Senators on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to consider President Biden’s nominations to fill current and future vacancies for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The FERC nominees are Democrats Judy Chang and David Rosner, and Republican Lindsay See. By statute, only three of the five commissioners can be from the same political party. FERC is an independent federal agency that makes key decisions about our nation’s energy future, including the interstate transmission of methane gas and electricity.