If you think that Eversource, NGrid, and their Canadian pipeline partner, Enbridge, have given up on building more gas pipelines to bring unneeded, carbon-emitting, natural gas to MA, please listen to what they are saying. They’ve told investors that they will ask the Legislature, once again, to force MA consumers to pay a pipeline tax of $6.6 BILLION to finance their projects.
The Legislature has wisely refused to pass a pipeline tax, the Supreme Judicial Court has unanimously said “no way,” and residents and businesses from Cummington to the Cape have risen up against more in protest. Now, it seems that pipeline proponents may be planning an end run, with help from ISO - New England, the regional grid operator.
Gas-obsessed ISO, and its CEO, Gordon van Welie, might ask FERC to impose a “regional tariff,” -- a huge rate hike across New England, that would bypass state legislatures and the courts, but not consumers, who would still be stuck with the tab.
In its mission to keep power flowing, ISO is supposed to be fuel- neutral. Despite this mandate, Chairman van Welie has long been a natural gas cheerleader. He would be risking the credibility and effectiveness of ISO by trying to defeat the legislature, the courts, and the people all at the same time, and using scare tactics to do it.
I wrote an article that appeared last week in Commonwealth Magazine to provide details regarding ISO’s bogus attempts to frighten us into caving to the fossil fuel industry.
Sometime in October, fittingly, perhaps, on Halloween, ISO is due to release a fuel security study, the details of which remain closely guarded, but that will likely suggest, once again, that New England will be freezing in the dark or facing rolling blackouts unless we come to our senses and pay for gas pipelines that we don’t need, don’t want and can’t afford. BOO!
You have it wrong Mr. Van Welie. The future is in clean, renewable power, not more climate changing fossil fuels.
If you have a moment, please read the article and pass it along.
Best wishes for a clean, healthy and safe environment.
Andy Savitz