Over 1,000 march on FERC against gas export from Cove Point or anywhere

On the 13th of July, over 1,000 people marched from the Mall to the 1st st NE offices of FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They were demanding that FERC refuse to approve permits for fracked gas (LNG) exports from Cove Point, MD or anywhere else. Until now FERC has acted like a rubber stamp for fossil fuel energy projects.

Video of the march from the Capitol to FERC

I recognized some of the props, such as the "vapor cloud wall" from anti-LNG export protests in Calvert County, MD, where the project poses a lethal hazard to residents of both Cove Point and Lusby if there is ever an accident at the LNG plant. There have been a number of LNG accidents and explosions in recent years, thankfully at LNG facilities farther from populated areas than at Cove Point. The old gas import facility there is little used, and Dominion Energy wants to massively expand it and convert it into a liquified natural gas (LNG) export facility. This would put fracked US gas on the global market and bring global wholesale prices triple the US price to all gas comsuming and producing activies in the US.

It is estimated residential gas prices would rise about 30% if LNG export from the US takes off, and some of those factories that have opened in the US to use cheap fracked gas would close and move abroad. The only winners would be Dominion Energy themselves, the pipeline companies, and those with investments in fracking. Those living near fracked gas fields or the Cove Point facility would pay the highest price of all, but everyone else would also be losers in this deal.