Climate Crisis Activists Trying to Head off Destruction
Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

 

Washington: This month’s regular FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) meeting was anything but calm after four climate crisis activists were removed for disrupting the proceedings. That event, along with the regular monthly streetside protest outside the agency’s headquarters that draws attention to the rapidly and ever-growing climate crisis the world is facing, set off a day of climate activism “From FERC to the Senate.”

Using Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) own words proclaiming that he has “A whole lot of clout as Senate Minority Leader,” activists asked that anyone concerned about the climate crisis call his office to demand that he use his “clout” to “stop permitting new methane infrastructure in a Climate Emergency.”

Along with their calling for that action, activists attempted to deliver a petition from BXE (Beyond Extreme Energy) addressed to Schumer, President Biden, and the Congress of the United States signed by more than 8,397 people. The letter calls upon the Democratic party leadership in the Senate, House, and White House to take “strong” action ahead of Trump’s return.

The petition reads: “We call upon the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate, House, and White House to do everything in their power to take strong action, before Trump takes office, on the climate crisis. And we call upon House and Senate Democratic Party leadership to resolve that they will put up fierce resistance in a variety of ways to the Trump/MAGA plans to “drill, baby, drill” and undercut what progress has been made over the last four years to shift away from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy. Democratic Party leaders must use all of the tools available, like the filibuster in the Senate, to put roadblocks in the way of the plans to strengthen the power of the polluting fossil fuelers.”

Climate crisis activists are also calling to end Joe Manchin’s “fatally flawed” EPRA (Energy Permitting Reform Act) and demanding that legislators use the 60-Vote Rule and filibuster, to protect the NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act), call for the declaration of a Climate Emergency, protect public lands by stopping fossil fuel expansion and to engage by joining unions and workers for a New Green Deal by 2026.

Referring to former Democrat, now Independent, Senator Joe Manchin as a “coal baron and fossil fuel lobbyist,” the group noted his use as chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee as not being in the public interest. Throughout his tenure, Manchin has managed to reconfigure the committee by overthrowing FERC leadership in which the permitting of environmentally negative projects such as coal plants and LNG export terminals along with additional hydrocarbon pipelines have increased.

On one positive note, the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC recently ruled against the FERC “broken permitting process” by striking down permits the agency had issued for gas pipelines in New Jersey and Texas, along with three LNG gas export terminals in Louisiana and Texas, for having not considered climate change and environmental justice impacts the projects ignored.

With the petition in hand, a group of thirty activists headed to Schumer’s office in the Hart Senate Office Building where just before their arrival staff members locked the office door. Some activists dressed as “Lamenters” wore white head scarfs and long burlap cloaks with climate crisis-related signs on them, began a silent, peaceful demonstration by walking to and posing in the foyer of the building outside of Schumer’s office. The Capitol Police arrived threatening protesters with arrest for demonstrating in a restricted area.

After three warnings to disperse, and deciding not to be arrested, the activists removed their burlap costumes and went to the building’s cafeteria to reorganize. There they decided each would visit their respective representative’s office to deliver their strong convictions regarding the climate crisis. One of the activists was able to deliver the group’s petition to a staff member in Maggie Hassan’s (D-NH) office who agreed to forward it to Senator Schumer’s office.

Not all was lost as the commotion surrounding the efforts in the buildings was observed by many, bringing more attention to their cause to seriously address the climate crisis before the new administration begins its dismantling of the progress made in the past four years.

(Phil Pasquini is a freelance journalist and photographer. His reports and photographs appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affair, Countercurrents, and Nuze.ink. He is the author of Domes, Arches and Minarets: A History of Islamic-Inspired Buildings in America.)