HEADLINE: “Opposition to Constitution and NESE Pipelines Coming from Public Citizen: An NGO Set Up to Reward Grifters and Lawyers”, By Jim Willis THOMAS J SHEPSTONE
“Well, you knew this was coming. Radicalized green groups are gearing up to challenge two recently resurrected Williams pipeline projects: The Constitution Pipeline, a 124-mile, 660 MMcf…”
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Opposition to Constitution and NESE Pipelines Coming from Public Citizen: An NGO Set Up to Reward Grifters and Lawyers
JUL 14
Guest post by Jim Willis of Marcellus Drilling News.
Well, you knew this was coming. Radicalized green groups are gearing up to challenge two recently resurrected Williams pipeline projects: The Constitution Pipeline, a 124-mile, 660 MMcf/d greenfield (brand new) pipeline from the gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania (in Susquehanna County) into and through New York to Schoharie County; and the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project, designed to increase Transco pipeline capacity and flows of Marcellus gas heading into New York City and other northeastern markets.
Following some intense conversations between President Trump and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, she caved (according to the White House). She agreed to allow two long-stalled pipeline projects—the Constitution and NESE—to get built in NY in return for Trump allowing her to continue to sink $5 billion into an offshore wind project (see White House Claims NY Gov. “Caved” on Pipelines, Hochul Says No).
Not long after, Williams asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reissue a certificate for the NESE project (see Williams Files Request Asking FERC to Reissue NESE Cert in NY, NJ). So far, Williams has not requested a reissued certificate for the Constitution, but we expect that to happen soon as well.
Big Green groups are calling the horse-trading between Trump and Hochul a quid pro quo and believe they can challenge it on that basis and block both projects from happening. The first step is to challenge Williams’ request of FERC to reissue the NESE certificate. If FERC grants the certificate (and refuses the request to rehear the decision), Big Green will take it to a federal court. At least, that’s what they plan.
However, Big Green may be in for a rude awakening. In the article below (hard to read, written from the hate-Trump point of view), you will read that the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) hopes to “slow the permit” process—a typical leftist tactic. Delay and then deny. The problem (for the NRDC) is that FERC recently defanged this tactic.
As we wrote in June, FERC issued a blanket waiver (valid for the next two years) of its Order No. 871, which has allowed Big Green to block the construction of pipeline projects while rehearing requests are being handled (see FERC Grants Nat’l Waivers Making It Easier to Build NatGas Pipes). The result has been to delay projects by years while Big Green ties up such projects with endless appeals. Waiving Order No. 871 frees up FERC personnel to go ahead and issue orders to allow projects to begin construction. Oops, too bad, so sad for the NRDC!
Here, via POLITICO’s E&E News, is the left’s strategy to try to defeat both NESE and the Constitution Pipeline:
Opposition is growing over a revived natural gas pipeline project that would run into New York City, and critics say President Donald Trump’s heavy-handed intervention has made the plan vulnerable to a legal takedown.
The line of attack raises the prospect that Trump’s transactional method of operating — and a White House boast — could be used to challenge the Northeast Supply Enhancement project and another gas project Trump wants built: the Constitution pipeline.
“In a normal era, this would be a Watergate-level scandal. I’m actually shocked that everyone acknowledges the basic factual timeline, but yet most people just shrug and move on,” said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy and Climate Program.
In the consumer advocacy group’s formal protest to federal regulators, Slocum called it a “quid pro quo.” Trump administration officials say they’re simply advancing projects that will reduce energy costs. The outcome of the tussle over gas pipeline plans may help shape whether the northeastern United States builds more renewable energy infrastructure or relies more on fossil fuels such as natural gas.
The Northeast project, or NESE, proposed by Williams Cos. would include a 24-mile pipeline running underwater into New York from New Jersey, which would host three miles of onshore pipe. It is an expansion of Williams’ 10,000-mile Transcontinental natural gas pipeline system connecting Gulf states with the New York metro area.
Williams is seeking to reinstate a permit — known officially as a certificate — from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that expired in May 2024 after being slowed by regulatory hurdles imposed by New York state officials. Public Citizen’s formal protest before the commission says the “unseemly” way the project was revived shows it is not in the public interest.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is seeking to slow the project, arguing to FERC that Williams cannot simply resurrect the permit. Instead, NRDC said, the company needs to start over with a new application.
“Transco cites zero relevant support for its contention that a dead certificate can be shocked back to life in these circumstances,” the organization said in a protest filed with FERC.
And more than 500 people have registered for formal “intervenor” status with FERC, amid encouragement from environmental groups and opposed local governments.
For example, the Franklin Township government in New Jersey has posted online detailed instructions on how to intervene. Its sample language suggests saying, in part, “Air quality, water quality, health and safety are threatened by the potential for an explosion.”
Williams, which is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, did not respond to requests for comment from POLITICO’s E&E News. But in its request to FERC to revive its permit, the company said NESE is needed to fulfill Trump’s energy goals.
“President Trump’s executive orders make clear the NESE Project is more important than ever,” the company said in its petition, signed by Francesca Ciliberti, senior counsel of Williams’ Transcontinental subsidiary.
‘Abuse of powers’
In the White House’s telling, both pipeline projects were dead until Trump shut down construction of a wind energy project important to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D). The White House said Trump allowed the wind project to resume only after Hochul “caved” and agreed to approve the pipeline, along with Constitution.
Hochul has not approved either pipeline proposal and told Newsdayshe made no deal to do so. But Slocum still thinks something about the situation smells rotten.
It’s “the product of an unseemly, tawdry political shakedown involving unlawful abuse of powers by the Trump Administration and the State of New York,” Slocum said in his protest filing.
The White House didn’t directly the address the allegation of wrongdoing when asked by E&E News. In a statement, the administration said it is “championing domestic energy production.” Department of Energy spokesperson Ben Dietderich said NESE is needed to bring down energy costs in a section of the United States.
“The Northeast has long had the some of the most expensive energy in the country due largely to the inadequate natural gas pipeline capacity in the region, leaving it vulnerable to price spikes and system reliability issues,” Dietderich said.
High electricity prices have helped to weaken pipeline resistance among elected Democrats in the Northeast. The region relies heavily on natural gas but has limited pipeline capacity and has some of the highest electricity prices in the nation.
The revival of NESE — which is commonly pronounced “nessy” — and Constitution are the latest development in a yearslong tug-of-war over whether to power the Northeast with wind turbines and other renewable sources, or fossil fuels delivered by pipeline.
Constitution and NESE were two of at least five northeastern gas pipeline shredded by local opposition and environmental litigation. One gas trade group, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, has accused New York of erecting an “energy blockade.”
Just last year, activists in New York and New Jersey were celebrating the demise of NESE…
Hochul has said she is open to considering pipeline projects on their merits. Aides say she introduced a new process to go beyond environmental reviews and look at whether new pipelines are needed to meet power needs.
Cuomo, Hochul’s predecessor, had refused to grant Williams the needed water permits for NESE and Constitution, and Williams pulled the plug on both projects after years of wrangling. But under Hochul, the state bucked criticism from green groups and approved air permits for an expansion of the Iroquois gas pipeline.
Still, Williams made no public moves to revive either Constitution or NESE.
Then in April, Trump halted construction of Equinor’s Empire Wind 1 off the coast of New York, even though it was fully permitted and construction was under way. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum cited a report from an arm of the Commerce Department that he said showed Empire Wind’s approval had been rushed…
Burgum lifted the roadblock 33 days after imposing it, without explanation and without ever producing the Commerce report. The May 19 decision came after a weekend of what Equinor CEO Anders Opedal would describe as “roller coaster” negotiations. according to the Financial Times. At one point in May, according to Newsday, Hochul called Opedal for details at 11 p.m. in New York, apologizing because it was six hours later in Norway…
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in the statement that Hochul agreed to allow “two natural gas pipelines to advance” through New York “because she knew it was the only way to save her flailing offshore wind project.”
…Deal or no deal, Williams officials took Trump’s reversal and Hochul’s statements about openness to pipelines as the red carpet rollout they’d been looking for. The company quickly started reengaging with federal and state regulators to revive lapsed permits for Constitution and NESE…
Constitution pipeline
Trump had long pushed for the higher-profile Constitution pipeline — a $1 billion project designed to carry gas 124 miles from shale wells in West Virginia and Pennsylvania to New York and New England. A shortage of pipeline capacity has put downward pressure on the price of natural gas produced in that area, and oil and gas companies are some of the biggest financial backers of Trump’s political efforts.
But Williams itself canceled the Constitution project in 2020 after years of regulatory sparring with New York under Cuomo.
The company has not formally asked FERC to reinstate its permit for the Constitution project, but it has sought permits from Pennsylvania and New York. The idea of reviving Constitution has met some pushback from the Empire State.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation informed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in late June it will not abide by the 25-day deadline the Army Corps set in keeping with Trump’s declaration of a “national energy emergency.” The state agency said six months is a “reasonable period of time” to act on the request. The department also deemed Williams’ Constitution application incomplete last week…
But NESE faces a tough political environment, especially in New Jersey. There would be only three miles onshore on the New Jersey side with that project, but it still requires sign off from state environmental regulators.
New York environmental regulators last week deemed complete Williams’ application for a state permit for NESE, kicking off a public comment period that runs until Aug. 1.
Beyond the local governments stirring up opposition, Gov. Phil Murphy (D) has fought NESE in the past, so he could be criticized for flip-flopping if he were to approve it now. A Murphy spokesperson declined to comment.
Either way, opponents are spoiling for a fight.
Editor’s Note: This appears to be largely a planted story from the Public Citizen’s Energy and Climate Program. Public Citizen is a Ralph Nader entity and plays one of the favorite NGO games, that being a combination of two entities — one political and not tax-exempt for donations and the other (Public Citizen Foundation in this case) being a supposed charity where donations are tax-exempt — which effectively launders tax-exempt money for political purposes.
Jim wrote a piece regarding Public Citizen’s lawfare two years and I republished it here. Lawfare is what all of Ralph Nader’s organizations were always about. He was a rainmaker for trial lawyers from the very beginning, and here is what I said at the time about the Jim’s article:
Jim views this Public Citizen Foundation lawfare initiative as “seriously demented.” That’s true as far as it goes with respect to the ideas promoted, but there’s much more to the story. It is that uber-wealthy elites who fund this demented stuff are serious as could be and not demented at all. No, they’re smart as hell and devious beyond. As I wrote here, here and, especially, here, coordinated RICO-type lawfare is the strategy of these folks for securing unrestrained power and ever more immense wealth:
Public Citizen also worked with the Energy Foundation, the Sierra Club, the Rockefeller Family Fund and the NRDC gang to craft the fraudulent Environmental Integrity Project. The Energy Foundation is, of course, funded by the Sea Change Foundation, the dark money fractivist funder (more here) and, to top it off, Rob Weissman, the President of Public Citizen (which also does the IRS film flam using two organizations) was part of the La Jolla Junta behind the current effort to gin up a RICO case around global warming; a shot across the industry’s bow that has boomeranged back on the fractivists and, ironically, is the perfect illustration of what a RICO conspiracy really is.
Yes, we are fighting raw power, not the demented ideology espoused by those addicted to it for consumption by their shills. And, where the hell are RICO lawsuits against these conspiratorial elites? Why is the oil and gas industry sitting on its hands and trying to buy off the enemy with ridiculous PR efforts (e.g., API tactics) and silly greenwashing that everyone knows is just pouring a little bit of money down the rat hole. Stop playing stupid games and sue the bastards yourself! Get in the fight!!!!
It’s also important to note that many of the players are interested in lawfare not only for trial lawyer enrichment, but also solar energy grifting, which is what the Energy Foundation is all about. These NGOs are lechers.
#ConstitutionPipeline #NESEpipeline #FERC #Waivers #MarcellusShale #NaturalGas #NewYork #Trump #Hochul #PublicCitizen #NGOs #Lawfare #TrialLawyers #Grifters
BOTTOMLINE: “It’s also important to note that many of the players are interested in lawfare not only for trial lawyer enrichment, but also solar energy grifting, which is what the Energy Foundation is all about. These NGOs are lechers.”