The July 21 release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) met wide-spread negative reaction from ABRA and its member organizations. In a press release issued shortly after the FEIS was made public, ABRA stated that the document “utterly fails to independently assess whether the project is even needed.” Continuing, the ABRA release said:
This is the core issue upon which all other considerations of the controversial project are based, says a coalition of community groups and legal and technical experts. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relies solely on the project developer’s claims of need for the 600-mile, $5.2 billion pipeline, which would yield substantial profit for Dominion Energy and the other private companies behind the project, while the public would be saddled with the financial, environmental and health risks.
The FEIS, which was sent to the ABRA mailing list just after its public release, will be discussed in more detail in upcoming issues of Update. More on the FEIS is included below in In the News. In particular, we strongly commend the Recorder editorial, “We can only fight – and hope – for our future.” It’s excellent!