Jim Hurdis is a member of the UU Fellowship of Raleigh, North Carolina, where he served two years as co-chair of their social justice committee. Along with the environment, Jim is passionate about gun violence issues, food insecurity, and affordable housing.
I’m struck by the audacity of Senator Joe Manchin’s energy permitting proposal and have been reflecting on how we got here and the implications for moving forward.
In the 1960s, many realized that our country’s industrialization was polluting the air and water and contaminating the land. People were ill and dying from the pollution. I saw firsthand the effects of coal strip mining in Illinois, where I spent my youth.
In response, Congress passed a series of Environmental Acts aimed at restoring our waterways, air, and land, dealing with hazardous waste, and creating an agency to oversee protecting the environment. (Library of Congress: guide).
They included the: Clean Air Act (1970); Clean Water Act (1972); Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (1972); Endangered Species Act (1973); Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act (1972); National Environmental Policy Act (1970) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976). In 1970, President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Sometimes the reviews were onerous, but so was the contamination. I remember the snail darter discovery, which stopped the construction of a Tennessee Valley Authority dam until a resolution was achieved. I also recall the pipeline leaks in Wisconsin from visiting my grandparents. (The Center for Biological Diversity reports nearly 300 pipeline incidents per year on average through 2013.)
Previously, nobody knows exactly when, Senator Manchin (D-WV) reached a side deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to overhaul the U.S. energy-permitting process in exchange for supporting the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which included significant investments to address the climate crisis. Speaker Pelosi and President Biden were aware (WV News) (The Hill) of their deal. The West Virginian senator’s reforms were aimed to speed up the approval of energy projects. Later, facing widespread bipartisan opposition, after a leak and official release, Sen. Manchin pulled his reforms from the Continuing Resolution (NPR). Minority Leader McConnell called it a “poison pill” (Government Executive). Both Senators Schumer and Manchin vowed to “keep working on the permitting bill” (Bloomberg).
What galls me is why these energy projects are such a high priority when so much of what the U.S. produces is not for domestic use. The United States exports over 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, according to the U.S Energy Information Administration’s August 31 report. And exports 6.65 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year, according to the agency’s May 21 report.
Shouldn’t the cost of contamination and pollution to local communities be too high for the export market? Shouldn’t transgressing local sovereignty and considerations for our heritage and belonging to the land outweigh the profits of selling to international consumers? Should we trample the protections of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act for non-domestic consumption?
If the United States produces enough oil and gas for domestic consumption, how can these local energy infrastructure projects be a domestic priority?
To me, it’s not a priority to build or allow for fast-track permitting for pipelines that will ship our scarce resources outside of the U.S. Even if the oil and gas are used domestically, that’s not a good enough reason to undermine environmental protections won in the 1960s and still needed.
So I’m asking my members of Congress some simple questions and urge you to do the same with your members:
- Do you agree the results of clean water, air, and resource conservation acts are an improvement for our environment?
- Don’t these acts represent good stewardship for our good green earth, creation, our interdependent web of life?
- Do you agree there are no critical energy projects concerning oil or gas products, based on the U.S Energy Information Administration’s information?
- Will you vote to defeat any bill attempting to establish priority energy infrastructure projects? Will you oppose attempts to insert bills for priority energy infrastructure projects into the budget or “Must-Pass” legislation, now and in the future?
Senator Manchin’s proposal may have been dropped from the current Continuing Resolution. Still, it seems the fight will continue, and we must win the struggle to preserve the effectiveness of environmental protection legislation hard-won in the 1970s.