Tag: Article 97

For now, at any rate, no interstate pipeline is on the horizon, nor are any other projects such as federal highways or railroads that might threaten Article 97.

Rep William "Smitty" Pignatelli, D-Lenox, worked with Rep. Kate Hogan, D-Stow, to include the agricultural estate tax reform bill as part of a larger environmental bond bill that seeks to address the Commonwealth’s climate-change preparedness and response plans.

"Current retired" officers of the State Police were paid nearly $1 million by Kinder Morgan to provide security at the Otis State Forest site.

H.3833 authorizes Lenox to place a conservation restriction on municipally owned land where the town’s public water supply and watershed are located.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. was left with highly contaminated water that the company had not expected – and a big disposal problem.

Markey cited solar and wind power as future drivers of the economy and he questioned why the Trump administration did not see it as a source of jobs for unemployed workers, especially the blue-collar workers Trump purports to represent.

At the Lower Spectacle Pond picnic area, about 80 people gathered at 10 a.m. to not only protest the pipeline but support "the need for solidarity against fossil fuel infrastructure across the country," said a Sugar Shack Alliance spokesperson.

State Sen. Adam Hinds: "If anybody's learned anything from this election, it's that elections have consequences – serious policy consequences. They are absolutely gutting the EPA at a rate that even the most pessimistic person would be surprised about right now." Hinds was also sharply critical of the state in allowing the pipeline project to move through the Otis State Forest, which is state-owned land ostensibly protected from development.

Since the activists did not enter a building, boat or vehicle, the state must prove that the protesters entered "improved or enclosed land."

Sitting right next to the existing right-of-way being widened aggressively by Tennessee Gas Company is a "Thoreau Cabin," so named for American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, who wrote the famous essay on civil disobedience.

"This is obviously fear of a trial. We want our day in court to talk about both the immorality and illegality of what's going on ... we want a trial." --- Vivienne Simon of the Sugar Shack Alliance

So where were the Massachusetts officials who could have negotiated with Connecticut to save Otis State Forest because the gas wasn’t really needed after all?

"In the face of ongoing climate change, it is crystal clear that [our] responsibility [to protect the earth] requires us to reject all fossil fuel infrastructure construction, no matter how small or large the project may be." -- Irvine Sobleman of Northampton, a member of the Sugar Shack Alliance

Dozens of State Police troopers and private security guards hired by Tennessee Gas Pipeline, a subsidiary of energy giant Kinder Morgan, stood watch.

On March 15, the Court held that the Natural Gas Act does not allow pipeline companies to leapfrog over state administrative procedures in order to expedite their projects. This is the first time a federal Circuit Court has interpreted the relevant language in the Natural Gas Act.

Depressed consumer demand for natural gas in Connecticut, could yet save beleaguered Article 97 of the Massachusetts’ Constitution. Reduced demand for gas in Connecticut could allow Massachusetts to continue to protect pristine, specially designated Commonwealth terrain.