PennEast Turns to Eminent Domain, Violating Rights

The long-running battle over the PennEast corporation’s application to run a natural gas pipeline from the fracking fields of Pennsylvania into New Jersey, which I have strongly supported, last year reached a point that I cannot support. In an article updated January 2019, Landowners are holding up PennEast. Now the pipeline is fighting back, Michael Sol Warren of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com reported:

Carla Kelly-Mackey has been fighting to keep a pipeline off of her farm for years.

Now, the private company is looking to use eminent domain, a right usually reserved for the government, to get at the land.

I posted these comments:

I am a big supporter of energy production, including pipelines that deliver natural gas. Energy is vital to human life and flourishing. Energy is the industry that powers all other industry that keeps us alive and well. 

I am also a big supporter of freedom based on individual rights, including property rights. So I draw the line on my support for the PennEast pipeline at eminent domain. 

It is said that “Eminent domain is generally used by local, state and federal agencies to seize private land for projects that serve the public good.” But a public good justification is vague. Since every person is a part of the public, then any project that serves any member of the public can be deemed to be in “the public good.” Thus, you get bizarre distinctions like, if its for a road, we can seize your land. But a pipeline?—no way.

But roads are different than private nat-gas pipelines, you say? Why? Are users of roads “the public,” but users of natural gas are not? But the PennEast pipeline is used for private profit, you say? But so are the roads. Did you ever see all those trucks traveling the roads carrying merchandise intended for sale for profit? What about all those cars carrying people to work—people looking to profit from their labor? Why are their jobs more important than the jobs of people who would work on building and maintaining the pipeline? When the “public good” is the standard, it turns out that the “good” of some people takes precedence over the “good” of others.

Why? How is that just? Just because the good of some people is deemed good for “the public”?

Patricia Kornick, a spokeswoman for PennEast, observes that “organized and unaccountable opposition groups have their own political agenda.” True. Everyone has a political agenda, thanks to eminent domain. When “the public good” (or “public need”) is the standard, then the public good turns out to be defined by whoever gets the upper hand of government power on their side. 

Federal approval or not, there is no justification for anyone using the power of government to seize private property—not even by government officials; not even for a road. The “public good” or the “public need” is a terrible standard, precisely because there is no way to be fair about it. The proper standard is to protect private property rights. This means PennEast can only gain access to land by voluntary agreement of landowners, or not at all. What if owners refuse? Then find another route, make a better offer, etc. 

Most of the arguments used by opponents of the pipeline are hogwash, driven by Environmentalist dogma or “clean energy” agendas or bogus and irrelevant economic arguments. However, much as I want to see the pipeline built, I side with the property owners on this. This is another example of why eminent domain should be abolished in all of its manifestations. America is the land of unalienable individual rights. Eminent domain is un-American. Except, perhaps, for very narrow military purposes directly related to national security, the power of eminent domain should be abolished.

Related Reading:

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

Why Do We Need Pipelines?—Pipeline 101

Eminent Domain: The Dark Side of Pipelines

'Preserved land' is a Form of Eminent Domain

Who Decides Whether PennEast’s Pipeline is Needed, Necessary, and Wanted?

Untangling the PennEast Pipeline Rights Conundrum

Tom Gilbert Looks Backward, but ‘Need’ for Pipelines is Forward-Looking

Tom Gilbert, campaign director of ReThink Energy NJ and the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, crowed that We’ve proved we don’t need the PennEast pipeline. PennEast has proposed and is seeking regulatory approval to build a new natural gas pipeline through Western New Jersey. Gilbert’s proof? During the extreme cold spells of Winter 2019, there was enough natgas capacity to avert shortages. Here are some excerpts:

With spring here, and the coldest weather behind us, it’s a good time to reflect on the hollow claims PennEast made once again that its proposed pipeline is needed to make sure people can stay warm when it’s freezing outside.

If one of winter’s certainties is that there will be some numbingly cold days, another is that the companies that would profit from building the unnecessary pipeline through parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania will seize on this in an effort to justify building their new pipeline.

This winter’s polar vortex proved them wrong again.

Despite extreme cold spells, during the polar vortex, and also the bomb-cyclone of 2018, New Jersey had abundant gas for heating homes and other buildings.*

All PennEast’s billion-dollar pipeline would do is take away from the resources available for developing affordable, reliable, clean energy sources.

To say “[C]ompanies would profit from building the unnecessary pipeline” is contradictory. If it’s unnecessary, there would be no customers, and hence no profits.

More importantly, profit-seeking pipeline businesses and their investors are geared to future needs. The reason that “New Jersey had abundant gas for heating homes and other buildings” now is because pipeline builders foresaw today’s energy needs years ago, and built the infrastructure capacity we now rely upon.

That billion-dollar private expenditure does not “take away from the resources available for developing affordable, reliable, clean energy sources.” Morally, it’s their money, their choice. Anyone else is free to commit their own money to “developing affordable, reliable, clean energy sources”; e.g., build new nuclear capacity, if government would allow it and Environmentalists would get behind it.. Anyone is free to invest in unreliables, like solar and wind.

I for one am thankful for the forward-looking natgas pipeline builders. I hope to someday get access to natgas, which I do not now have, so I can convert from oil heat. That is one industry to whose profits I’d be happy to contribute to.

I won’t defend every public claim made by PennEast in support of regulatory approval for its proposed pipeline. But money speaks louder than words. If private investors are willing to put up $1 billion, I’d trust their judgement above anti-fossil fuel Environmentalists. Where would we be if ReThink Energy NJ, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, and their ilk had gotten their way 10 or 20 or so years ago, and stopped the building out of the pipeline capacity that kept NJ buildings warm in Winter 2019? It is the PennEasts, not the Environmentalists, who have our future reliable, affordable, clean energy needs in mind.

* [“Polar vortex” is the modern buzzword for extreme cold wave. “Bomb cyclone” is a relatively recent term invented by meteorologists to describe a rapidly intensifying low pressure system. Both phenomena have been around as long as Earth’s weather.]

Related Reading;

“To Make Money”: The Noble Motive of PennEast Pipeline Company

The NJCF’s Rant Against Human Energy Needs

Why Do We Need Pipelines?--Pipeline 101, American Petroleum Institute

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

Related Viewing:

Can We Rely on Wind and Solar Energy?

Environmentalists Seeking to Deprive NJ Residents of Reliable Energy

There is a dangerous movement in New Jersey to stifle the buildout of reliable energy infrastructure, particularly natural gas pipelines and power plants. And it’s had considerable success. Already, it has stopped construction of a new nat-gas power plant in Hillsborough. In  South Jersey, opposition to a nat-gas pipeline has caused the owners of a coal-fired power plant to abandon plans to convert it to natural gas.

Now, a coalition of environmental groups has called on Governor Phil Murphy to “halt a dozen proposed natural gas power plants and pipelines in New Jersey.” Empower NJ, as this group calls itself, wants Murphy to “focus entirely on developing green energy.” Brazenly belying its own title, Empower NJ calls only for unreliable, expensive wind and solar, not nuclear, the obvious choice for those truly committed to “green”--non-fossil fuel--energy.

I don’t know if Murphy even has the power to halt these projects. As of this writing, he has not done so. I submitted the following as yet unpublished letter to the NJ Star-Ledger:

To the editors,

Recent calls by the Environmentalist coalition Empower NJ for a “moratorium . . . on natural gas power plants and pipelines in New Jersey”  is a dangerous gamble that ignores the risk to human well-being (If Murphy wants to be N.J.'s Captain Planet, he’ll need to overcome Christie’s legacy first). We in NJ enjoy plentiful reliable energy because years ago farsighted energy producers foresaw the need for today’s energy, and put the infrastructure in place to meet it. The same foresight drives this new infrastructure. Technological breakthroughs may or may not somehow make “green” energy a viable replacement. But wishing won’t make it so. Neither will halting these energy projects. Hope is not foresight.

Whatever the effects of fossil fuel use on climate, the value of reliable energy to our lives is indisputable. Weather can be bad, as always. But energy deprivation would be catastrophic. When “green” energy companies demonstrate their products’ superiority, consumers will buy it without subsidies, mandates, or fossil fuel bans. Until then we should be thankful for the builders of nat-gas pipelines and power plants. It is they, not Environmentalists, who have our future energy security in mind.

Sincerely,

Michael A. LaFerrara

Flemington, NJ

Related Reading:

Energy Regressives Attack Proposed Hillsborough NJ NatGas Power Plant, and Win

New Jersey Conservation Foundation vs. Our Life-Enhancing Energy Needs

Mulshine on the ‘National Anti-Pipeline Movement’

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

The Real Reason They Hate Nuclear Is Because It Means We Don't Need Renewables--Michael Shellenberger for Forbes

Challenge the ‘100% Renewables” Fanatics on their Underlying anti-Humanism

In a New Jersey Star-Ledger column, After outages, Phil Murphy needs to take a look at where electricity comes from, Paul Mulshine once again takes on the anti-pipeliners. He points out the energy disaster now unfolding in another state where Environmentalists have been getting their way, Mulshine believes that “[NJ Governor Phil] Murphy could learn a lot more if he focused his attention on what's been going on this winter in his native state of Massachusetts”:

There, environmental extremists prevailed upon state legislators to prevent the construction of pipeline capacity that could give the state access to the cheap and plentiful natural gas from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.

A win for the environment? Not exactly. A recent editorial in the Boston Globe [Our Russian ‘pipeline,’ and its ugly toll] noted that instead of using fracked gas from Pennsylvania, some of the utilities switched to liquefied natural gas from Russia that came in on a tanker.

The editorial noted that the production of imported LNG is both more expensive and more carbon-intensive than domestic gas.

"As a result, to a greater extent than anywhere else in the United States, the Commonwealth now expects people in places like Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Yemen to shoulder the environmental burdens of providing natural gas that state policy makers have showily rejected here," it said.

Then there were the utilities that replaced the clean-burning gas with oil and coal, both of which are much dirtier. But so what? The anti-pipeline crowd was appeased.

Unfortunately, the anti-pipeline people are Luddites. You can determine that by going to the website of 350.org, the leading anti-pipeline group.

"Stop Fossil Fuels: Build 100% Renewables," it reads.

In labeling the anti-pipeliners “luddites”, Mulshine undoubtedly refers to their opposition to superior energy technologies, like fracking and pipelines. Nonetheless, I left this comment:

“Unfortunately, the anti-pipeline people are Luddites.”

I think “Luddite” gives them too much credit. The Luddites opposed labor saving machines because they displaced some jobs, which they saw as bad for human well-being. They were wrong. But at least their motive was pro-human.

The anti-pipeline movement is not pro-human. The movement is rooted in Environmentalist ideology that values undisturbed nature over human industrial progress. Why do Environmentalists oppose every reliable economical energy technology? Reliable energy drives industrial progress, so opposing reliables while increasing reliance on unreliable so-called “renewable” energy—they couldn’t get away with opposing all energy—will inhibit further human-caused “environmental destruction”. Since altering nature to human benefit is what industry is all about, the Environmentalists are anti-human well-being, the opposite of the Luddites.

As to [another point Mulshine makes], tree-clearing around power line rights-of-way, I doubt Environmentalists would allow the destruction of trees if they could stop it.

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Even bigger problems could be in store for Massachusetts. As Michael Bastasch reports for The Daily Caller, Rolling Blackouts Could Become A Fact Of Life In New England as new natural gas pipelines are kept from being built and existing coal and nuclear plants—two more reliable energy sources hated by Environmentalists—are slated to be shut down. Unlike the bratty “100% renewables now!” whim-worshipers, energy industrialists look years down the road. We ignore them at our peril. A “100% renewable energy” future is a bleak place for human life.

Related Reading:

Mulshine on the ‘National Anti-Pipeline Movement’

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

The Risks of the Pilgrim Pipeline—and the Risks of Not Having Pipelines

Are Pipelines a Threat to Water?

Our Russian ‘pipeline,’ and its ugly toll--the Boston Globe Editorial Board

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century—Ronald Bailey
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels Hardcover—Alex Epstein

The NJCF’s Rant Against Human Energy Needs

In an editorial that served as the negative side of a New Jersey Star-Ledger “pro-con” debate on the proposed PennEast natural gas pipeline that will cut across Western areas of the state, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation’s Tom Gilbert presented the argument against allowing the pipeline to be built.

But the editorial is more a rant than an argument. Gilbert issues the usual warning of environmental catastrophe, despite the fact that millions of miles of existing pipelines already deliver life-enhancing energy to Americans, including in New Jersey. This includes the Transco/Williams Pipeline that crosses the same Delaware River as the PennEast will, and that passes through my township of Readington, and which I cross right over on my daily walks. Transco includes a brand new pipeline recently constructed. No catastrophe.

Facts don’t stop Gilbert from offering vague warnings. “PennEast proposes a serious risk to drinking water supplies from heightened arsenic levels, and threatens critical wildlife habitats and thousands of acres of preserved open space and farmland,” he writes—ignoring the fact that plentiful reliable energy from the likes of fossil fuel pipelines are required to deliver the drinking water; ignoring the fact that wildlife thrives around existing pipelines; ignoring the fact that pipelines are underground, leaving the land just as preservable and that without fossil fuels to power modern farm equipment, there would be no farms to preserve.

Gilbert's sloppy rationalization comes to a head with the favorite environmentalists’ claim that the pipeline “isn’t needed”, which contradicts Gilbert’s later claims that the motive behind the proposed pipeline “is driven by utility company profits.” Gilbert doesn't explain how companies are to earn profits by not selling natural gas to consumers who don’t need it. By its own rhetoric, the argument from need makes no sense whatsoever.

Gilbert does have one valid argument: The pipeline builders’ approval of the pipeline is accompanied by the power of eminent domain, which can be used against landowners should voluntary agreements not be possible.* But where is the Conservation Foundation when it comes to seizing taxpayers’ monetary property to buy the development rights for the purpose of creating the preserved open space and farmland? Defending taxpayers? No, defending open space. Where was the NJCF when Solberg Airport in Readington was spending $millions fighting the township’s years-long attempt to seize it through eminent domain? The Conservation Foundation’s new-found concern for private property rights rings hollow, indeed. **

Gilbert’s arguments fall flat. But the main thrust of the article revolves around pushing the state government bureaucrats to stop the project.

It would be a big mistake for PennEast to think the conditional approval it received from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) means their pipeline will be built, said New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJ Conservation) and other opponents of the dangerous and costly project today.

"It's just the beginning. New Jersey doesn't need or want this damaging pipeline, and has the power to stop it when it faces a more stringent state review," said Tom Gilbert, campaign director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJ Conservation).

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a decision by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) to deny a key water permit for the proposed Constitution gas pipeline that had been approved by FERC, effectively halting its construction. Very recently, FERC itself confirmed the State's right to make such a determination by refusing to allow Constitution pipeline to proceed given the state's denial.

Those are the first three paragraphs. It’s all about “the power to stop it”. And that really gets to the heart of the motive of people lake Gilbert and organizations like the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. “Conservation”—of what? Of nature. From what? Of man’s building of industrial projects. Don’t be fooled by quack statements like “commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move New Jersey to 100 percent clean energy,” which appears near the end of Gilbert’s Star-Ledger print version of the article. As it stands now, so-called “clean energy”, usually solar and wind, provides only a tiny fraction of our energy, and for good reason: It is unreliable and cannot satisfy the massive energy needs of our industrial progress.

And that’s the point. Environmentalists’ like the NJCF seek to conserve nature from human industrial development—meaning, they don’t care about human well-being. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) reduces greenhouse gas emissions because it is replacing coal through price competition. Nuclear and hydroelectric release no greenhouse gases. Yet, environmentalists oppose them all. If they were primarily concerned about the climate from a human life perspective, they would embrace all three. But of course, Environmentalists don’t oppose climate change. They oppose only human activity that contributes to, or may contribute to, climate change.

Thank God for profit-seeking energy companies like the PennEast company. Environmentalists love to oppose new pipelines on the ground that they are “not needed?” But if not for the existing network of pipelines, our lives would be miserable, or non-existent. And if not for the farsighted willingness of today’s energy builders to invest in new infrastructure to meet future energy needs, we won’t have the plentiful, affordable, reliable energy that we so much take for granted today. There are “serious risks” and “threats” in every human life-advancing project. But those can be ameliorated. The benefits far outweigh the risks—that is, if human well-being is the standard. The anti-pipeline activists who use so much energy (both literally and figuratively) trying to stop this pipeline, and their passive supporters, should keep that in mind.

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* That governmental pipeline approvals are accompanied by grants of eminent domain power to the builders complicates matters for those of us who defend fossil fuel pipelines against the anti-pipeline jihadists. But this is not an argument against pipelines. It is an argument against eminent domain. See my link below.

** Having gotten approval from FERC, PennEast has begun filing eminent domain notices, according to Jon Hurdle for NJ Spotlight. NJCF purports to defend the property rights of people like Jacqueline Evans, whose 6.5 acre Organic-certified farm is threatened. But would the Environmentalist organization be defending her if an “endangered species” was discovered on her property?

Related Reading:

PennEast Pipeline Objections Don’t Add Up

Eminent Domain: The Dark Side of Pipelines

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

PennEast Pipeline Objections Don’t Add Up

Note to Anti-Pipeline Activists: ‘Unsafe Bridges’ a Good Argument for Pipelines

Bridges used to carry combustible crude oil need repairs, activists say

The War on Pipelines is part of the Environmentalist’s War on Fossil Fuels (itself part of the War on Reliable Energy, including nuclear power). A key object of this assault is fracked oil and gas. Fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, the miraculous process which has opened up vast new fossil fuel resources. Environmentalists view pipelines as a means of transporting fracked fossil fuels. So they’ve been waging their War on Pipelines under the logic that if you can’t transport fracked fuels, fracking can be restrained.

But where pipelines are lacking, producers have simply found other ways to transport their product—ways that are often less efficient and, more importantly, less safe. Not to be dissuaded, anti-fossil activists have launched a campaign to stop tanker trains from transporting fracked oil on the grounds that the bridges they cross are not safe. In Bridges used to carry combustible crude oil need repairs, activists say, Sara Jerde reported:

Combustible Bakken oil is too dangerous to be transported along Bergen County's aging bridges and rail ways, activists and environmentalists protested on Sunday.

Despite assurances from CSX, the railroad company, that bridges are regularly monitored and upgraded as necessary,

Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, pointed to the potential of dangerous incidents, such as in Quebec, where a derailment of a train carrying oil -- dubbed a "bomb train" -- resulted in 47 people dying.

"Bakken oil is one of the most dangerous form of chemicals we can put on the rail lines," he said. "We're playing Russian roulette that can, one day, lead to a catastrophic tragedy."

This is the same Sierra Club that can regularly be observed leading anti-pipeline protests. If Tittel really cared about safety, wouldn’t he see that the answer to the dangers of transporting oil by rail is pipelines?   

I left these comments, edited for clarity:

This is a good argument for pipelines. As the Star-Ledger has noted, pipelines are a much safer way to transport oil. The trouble is, these anti-rail activists are the same activists who oppose pipelines on principle, including the proposed Pilgrim Pipeline which could alleviate the need to transport Bakken oil by rail and truck.

These activists are not primarily concerned with safety. They’re concerned with shutting down reliable, affordable energy production, the lifeblood of our industry and our standard of living. Their main target is fossil fuels, but also nuclear. Why? Because environmentalists are driven by the principle of minimizing human impact on raw nature, rather than maximizing human well-being by promoting reliable energy development while minimizing the impacts of the negative side-effects of industrialization. Put in simple terms, they’re not about solving problems. They’re about “throwing out the baby with the bath water.”

These activists have no credibility. They never recognize the enormous benefits that fossil fuels provide for humans. They shout “STOP, STOP, STOP” at every progressive energy project, if the energy is produced from fossil fuels. Rather than help figure out the safest way possible based on current technology to move the Bakken Oil, the result of the incredibly progressive technology of fracking, they oppose, oppose, oppose—without due respect for the benefits. (Never mind so-called “renewable” green energy. Every kilowatt of solar and wind generation needs backup from fossil, nuclear, and hydro sources. With today’s technology, no matter how many solar panels or wind turbines are built, we’ll still need the oil. We’ll need it, that is, from the perspective of human well-being, not “saving our planet,” as the moral standard of value.)

The activists may have a point about the safety of the bridges. But why should anyone believe them? They logically should be demanding approval for the much safer pipeline method. They’re not. How do we know that the bridge safety issue isn’t just another cover for their war on fossil fuels (They’ve just embraced a new strategy to halt pipelines—defending property owners again eminent domaine. But the pipeline opponents have a double standard, as I’ve pointed out, defending private property against taking when it suits their agenda, and supporting the taking when it when it does)? Will any infrastructure improvements ever be enough to satisfy Jeff Tittel and his ilk that “the potential of dangerous incidents” has been minimized enough to be able to say that the benefits outweigh the risks? I doubt it. But remember; no risk means no progress and no industrial civilization.

Related Reading:

My Letter Rebutting Sierra Club Opposition to N.J. PennEast Gas Pipeline

Energy Regressives Attack Proposed Hillsborough NJ NatGas Power Plant, and Win

Mulshine on the ‘National Anti-Pipeline Movement’

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

PennEast Pipeline and Arsenic

The PennEast Pipeline poses arsenic risk to N.J. water supplies, writes T.C. Onstott and Julia L. Barringer in a guest column for the New Jersey Star-Ledger. The proposed pipeline will bring natural gas from Pennsylvania’s hydraulic fracturing fields into NJ. It is one of the front line battles in the environmentalists’ war against oil and gas pipelines.

I left these comments, edited for clarity:

Much of this article is devoted to telling us that arsenic is toxic to humans and animals, which is already well-known (although only above certain thresholds). And then we see the word “potential” mentioned several times. But what are the risks of not having reliable energy—you know, the kind that well owners need to bring that water into our homes on demand? Such energy is delivered to millions of Americans through millions of miles of existing pipelines in service today in the U.S.

It’s easy to find risks everywhere. But big picture thinking is vital. Negative side effects could be mitigated. But the vastly greater benefits of pipelines like PennEast dwarf the environmental risks involved. After all, where would we be without this energy? At the mercy of environmental dangers.

The issue is really moral. It pits environmentalists against human well-being. Environmentalists value untouched nature, which runs counter to what human beings need to survive and thrive—reshape nature to satisfy human needs. Pipeline builders and their supporters, including the future buyers of their energy, value human life.

Environmentalists use the so-called “precautionary principle” to fight industrial progress wherever projects are proposed. The principle holds that no project should be undertaken until all possible environmental risks have been neutralized. Of course, that would require omniscience, which is impossible to human beings. If the precautionary principle were in effect at the dawn of human progress, the discovery of fire would have been abandoned, and humans would never have risen from the cave. And, of course, the precautionary principle never considers the risks to humans of not having natural gas pipelines. Environmentalists and their allies in academia and government can concoct an endless stream of potential risks and use them, no matter how minute, to stop progress by imposing more studies paid for by someone else.

I’m not an expert on this subject. So I can’t state unequivocally that the authors don’t have a legitimate point. But I am observant and a thinker. Three natural gas pipelines pass right through Readington, passing about a mile from my house, which is supplied by well water. This gas provides thousands of people with their vital energy. There are 320,000 miles of natgas transmission lines around the USA. Yet people are flourishing thanks to the natgas, not dying all over the place from arsenic.

Excuse me for my skepticism when nothing but negatives, but no positives, are listed by pipeline opponents. Pipeline proponents are always willing to acknowledge, and rightly made to address, the risks. If human well-being is the moral standard, then big picture thinking is vital. I hope someone with the appropriate expertise posts an opposing opinion on these pages.

[NOTES: PennEast posted “Arsenic Myths” on its website to counter pipeline opponents’ arsenic threat theory. Patricia Kornick, spokesperson for the PennEast Pipeline Company, posted this letter, PennEast Pipeline no threat to drinking water. Also, this letter titled Proposed pipeline won’t create an arsenic issue in drinking water, unfortunately behind a paywall, appeared in the Burlington County Times.]

Related Reading:

How To Solve The Water Crisis: Use More Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein

PennEast Pipeline Objections Don’t Add Up

Eminent Domain: The Dark Side of Pipelines

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

Untangling the PennEast Pipeline Rights Conundrum

FERC Should Not Cave In to Anti-Pipeline Movement on PennEast Pipeline Application

The PennEast pipeline, which I have written often about, is apparently nearing completion of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval process (It’ll be issuing an environmental assessment on Friday, April 7, according to the article by Tom Gilbert cited below). This prompted a guest op-ed by a Tom Gilbert of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. In “PennEast Pipeline a threat to all New Jerseyans,” Gilbert gave some of the usual reasons for FERC to kill the project, such as the “threat” to water, and that is “not needed.”

But these reasons are rationalizations to advance a wider anti-energy ideological agenda. The first lines tell it all:

The debate over massive proposed oil and gas pipelines is heating up both nationally and locally.

New Jersey has been facing an onslaught of gas pipeline proposals in recent years, leading many residents to wonder how many, if any, are actually needed. It’s an important question because the construction and operation of gas pipelines pose serious consequences for our health, communities and wallets.

Reading this article, you’d think that clean safe water just magically pours out of our faucets by the grace of nature—no infrastructure needed. You’d never know that clean water could never reach our homes and buildings without the reliable affordable energy such as that which will be delivered through the PennEast pipeline. Clean water is rarely available in nature. It must be purified and pumped to us. That takes reliable, affordable energy. You’d never know that we have 2.3 million miles of existing pipelines delivering natgas energy to tens of millions of people to heat their homes and cook their food, and to power plants that generate our electricity, without creating a water or pollution crisis. You’d think pipelines have no value, yet without them most of us wouldn't even be alive and the rest would be living in poverty. The producers of reliable, increasingly clean, affordable, available-on-demand, plentiful energy—primarily fossil fuels—is the industry that drives every other industry. Deny this energy, and the humanitarian harm will be incalculable.

Yet, potential of their policies for causing such harm doesn’t concern the anti-pipeline movement. The dirty little secret of the PennEast opponents is that they don’t give a hoot about the people of NJ, or of people in general. They are part of a national anti-pipeline movement that NJ Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine calls “a jihad on pipelines [by] radical environmentalists . . . on the theory that if you choke off delivery you can eventually choke off production” of fossil fuels—pretty much admitted by way of the disdainful way Gilbert speaks of new pipeline proposals in the first couple of sentences. They aim to progressively starve Americans of the reliable energy they need to live and flourish, and have chosen pipelines as the choke point to accomplish that sinister goal. Why? They—the environmentalists/conservationists—are motivated by an anti-humanist moral standard; that nature in its unimpacted state takes precedence over human well-being, and they aim to “conserve” nature at human expense. Fundamentally, they are against development on principle, their “renewable energy” fantasies notwithstanding.

But human beings survive and thrive only by impacting nature so as to change the danger-filled environment nature gives us into an environment conducive to human safely and well-being. To favor unaltered nature is to oppose human flourishing—a cruel goal, indeed.

As to the economic argument presented here, the author talks out of both sides of his mouth. He simultaneously claims the pipeline is not “needed,” while asserting that the pipeline owners will make money from it. But you can’t have it both ways. Money making, or profits, are only earned by delivering a product that consumers will buy. If it’s not needed, consumers won’t buy it; hence, no profits. Fortunately, the profit-motivated builders of pipelines, like all builders of large expensive industrial projects, don’t just look at today’s market. They project consumer needs years and decades ahead, and are willing to risk their capital on the rightness of their projections.

My only agreement with Gilbert is this: I sympathize with the eminent domain argument against the pipeline. I have long argued that eminent domain is un-American, however it is used. Ideally, PennEast and other private companies should have to reach voluntary, mutually beneficial agreements with landowners its project crosses, or find another way. But I don’t believe for a minute that Gilbert cares about the victims of eminent domain. After all, these “conservationists” are the same people who rush to applaud environmental regulations and development restrictions imposed on private landowners that amount to uncompensated takings, such as the Pinelands and Highlands preservation acts. Their concern for the victims of eminent domain is window dressing.

Eminent domain is an injustice. But we must always look at the big picture. The greater injustice is the danger posed by the environmentalists’ assault on new pipelines. Indicating the anti-pipeline movement’s disdain for human well-being, Gilbert trots out the assertion that pipeline approvals “further. . . our dependence on dirty fossil fuels delays the clean, affordable energy future (think wind and solar).” This is pretty much an admission that solar and wind cannot replace fossil fuels, and that he doesn’t give a damn. If solar and wind truly were a superior energy technology, they would have already displaced fossil fuels in the market—especially given the hundreds of $billions worth of government subsidies they receive. But even without the subsidies, they win out. In a free market, superior technologies don’t need government to crush the older. Just as digital photography didn’t need to block film photography to win out, solar and wind don’t need to block pipelines to win out if they are really viable alternatives. Investors would willingly shift their investments to solar and wind without subsidies. Anti-fossil fuel crusaders know that solar and wind, as reliable economical alternatives, are crap. But they don’t care, except to say that someone, somewhere, will somehow make the impossible work.

Thank God for pipeline builders and their “onslaught” of new oil and gas pipeline proposals, both here and nationally. The energy we’ll need to live tomorrow depends on the investments these industrialists make today.

Related Reading:

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front, which features a reprinting of my public comments posted to FERC’s website.

The Unholy Alliance of the NIMBYs and the Anti-Pipeline Jihadists

Eminent Domain: The Dark Side of Pipelines

'Preserved land' is a Form of Eminent Domain

The Secret History of Fossil Fuels—Chapter One, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein