Sunday, June 22, 2025

News and Ideas Worth Sharing

Mary Douglas

Mary Stewart Douglas is an environmental lawyer who has worked at the Environmental Protection Agency, private firms, and, most recently, with an association representing the state and local administrators of the Clean Air Act. Before law school, she worked as an editor for John Wiley & Sons. Although she has lived in Washington, D.C. for 30 years, Mary can frequently be found in Massachusetts – Boston, Amherst, Great Barrington, and Northampton – visiting friends, relatives, and her three children. Mary holds degrees from Smith College and Hastings College of the Law.

written articles

Pipeline project seeks to strip Otis State Forest of its protected status

A public hearing in Boston on Tuesday, November 10, before the Joint Committee on State Administration & Regulatory Oversight, will consider a bill to remove conservation restrictions from Berkshire and Hamden counties' state forests and protected lands. State Rep. Smitty Pignatelli and state Sen. Ben Downing urge Berkshire residents to attend this hearing to oppose this measure. The Sandisfield Taxpayers Opposing the Pipeline have chartered a bus to go to the hearing.

EPA proposes 13 year, $613 million plan to clean Housatonic River of PCBs. Is it enough?

“We have before us a [cleanup] that allows significant concentrations and volumes of PCB-contaminated sediment, soils and water to remain in the water after completion of remediation activities…” -- Rest of the River Municipal Committee, composed of Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge, Great Barrington, and Sheffield

Natural gas pipeline adversaries escalate battle, funding challenged

The export of liquid natural gas (LNG) now expected to be a major component of the Northeast Direct natural gas pipeline project is likely to result in higher domestic prices. “The very facts surrounding the need for additional gas capacity are highly disputed.” -- Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who is also challenging the legality of the ratepayer-funded pipeline

The Kinder Morgan Pipeline: Down(Sized) but not out

The clean energy think-tank, Acadia Center, released a three-part report in June concluding that New England is not facing an energy crisis. And the Maine PUC is investigating whether a publicly-funded interstate pipeline, such as the Kinder Morgan pipeline, is legal.

Part II: The fracking quandary: More fossil fuels, little environmental oversight

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 specifically exempts oil and gas hydrofracking from the Act under the provisions of the Halliburton Amendment, so-named because Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton, and, in 2005, Chairman of the National Energy Policy Development Group, advocated the amendment. Under its terms, EPA is barred from regulating any activities associated with well construction, fluids injected undergound into the drilling well, and other activities at the wellpad.

Part I: Fracking: Unregulated, dangerous to human health, environment

By any number of measures – state accident reports, scholarly studies, in-depth reporting, and filed lawsuits -- hydrofracking operations are endangering the health of people who live in the vicinity, and degrading the air and water.

Anatomy of a pipeline decision: A scheme of ‘dubious’ legality

The general public has not been included in the development of energy projects, and in the words of the Conservation Law Foundation, “formulation of and negotiations around [energy] proposals have been conducted almost completely behind closed doors.”

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal on pipelines, PCBs, politics, and the Berkshire economy

The reason why natural gas costs so much more in New England than it does in Pennsylvania is that other states have made a commitment to building pipelines.

Stopping the pipeline: What are the options?

The proposed pipeline route travels through an estimated 20 state-protected wildlife management areas and state forests, municipal watershed protection areas, the reservations and sanctuaries of The Trustees and Mass Audubon, and the Appalachian Trail.
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