Studies consistently show that fracking and associated infrastructure leak more methane than previously estimated, and that rising methane levels are now driving adverse climate impacts.
"The Sierra Club is opposed to additional fossil fuel infrastructure out of the widely held scientific view that we must move as rapidly as possible away from fossil fuel energy, and that if we don't, human society will face cataclysmic impacts."
-- Emily Norton, chapter director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club
BPHC’s letter comes as the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards also calls on Gov. Baker to consider the documented hazards and potential risks of the production, transmission and burning of fracked natural gas.
“Trump doesn’t like to lose. If he doesn’t make renewables a priority, he will lose to the countries that are working to be clean energy leaders.”
-- Maya van Rossum, head of Delaware Riverkeeper Network
This study demonstrates that we do not need increased gas capacity to meet electric reliability needs, and that electric ratepayers shouldn’t foot the bill for additional pipelines.”
-- Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey
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.
Now, as never before, we have an opportunity to come together as a global society to wage peace in the name of survival…and beyond survival, prosperity. It will take ordinary people like you and me acting each in our own locales.
Disasters make us wake up and realize all over again how precious life is, and how important health and security are to human happiness. Even here in the placid Berkshires, we need to think about disaster prevention and preparedness. No, we don’t live in an earthquake zone, and no, I don’t see any riots on the horizon in quiet little Great Barrington. But there are some big issues brewing that we do need to be paying attention to now, before they become runaway disasters.
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.
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.
The study did not consider the impact of pipeline investments on Massachusetts’s long-term reliance on natural gas, nor did it consider these investments’ potential displacement of alternative energy sources. Environmental impacts of pipeline siting and construction and of natural gas extraction were also not considered.
Clean energy is the fastest growing part of the Massachusetts economy, providing 88,000 jobs thus far. If the low estimate cost of the pipeline were directed towards investment in clean energy, it could generate approximately 24,000 permanent jobs.
-- Rosemary Wessel, of No Fracked Gas in Mass
Massachusetts is top in the nation in terms of energy efficiency. Massachusetts residents and businesses have incentives to conserve energy and improve energy efficiency that others don’t. Couple energy efficiency with renewable energy and we’re on our way to a low-carbon transition.
'I am very concerned about the dangers of making any more long-term investments in natural gas infrastructure. Pipeline proposals, including the Kinder Morgan pipeline, create safety concerns in the communities they pass through.'
--Democratic Gubernatorial candidate, Donald Berwick
The pipeline proposed by Kinder Morgan would add more than 15 times the expected growth rate in natural gas consumption in New England. This pipeline is providing natural gas for export.
