Author Archives: ElisabettaBerger56

After Keystone failure, TransCanada comes up with another pipeline scheme in the U.S.

by ElisabettaBerger56 Posted on March 18, 2016

After Keystone failure, TransCanada comes up with another pipeline scheme in the U.S.

By on 18 Mar 2016commentsShare

After its hopes of cutting an enormous tar-sands oil pipeline across North America were dashed by anti-Keystone activists, TransCanada has moved on to something new: buying the Houston-based Columbia Pipeline Group, Inc. (CPG), a large natural gas pipeline company. The move will not improve TransCanada’s poor environmental reputation, as CPG has a troubled environmental history of its own.

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that TransCanada, Canada’s second-largest pipeline operator, said it would buy CPG for $10.2 billion. CPG owns about 15,000 miles of natural gas pipeline, mainly in the heavily fracked Marcellus and Utica shale regions. After the deal is made, TransCanada will own about 57,000 miles of gas pipelines in all. TransCanada CEO Russ Girling said during a conference call that the deal was “a rare, attractive opportunity that will create one of North America’s largest natural gas businesses,” according to the Times.

CPG and its subsidiaries have a record of pollution and of safety and environmental violations. Last year, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection cited Columbia Gas Transmission, a unit of CPG, for 125 violations in 2011 and 2012 at a site where it was constructing a pipeline. Those included multiple violations of the Clean Streams Law, including potentially polluting nearby waterways that were considered “High Quality” or “Exceptional Value Waters.” CPG was fined $150,000 for the violations, and was ordered to cover an additional $21,500 for the cost of inspections.

In 2014, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration fined Columbia Gas Transmission $28,800 for failing to provide proper fire protection at a liquefied natural gas plant in Chesapeake, Va., in 2012.

Last July, a diesel spill was discovered along the right-of-way of a buried natural gas pipeline owned by Columbia Gas of Virginia. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality concluded that the spill contaminated the main drinking water source for a community in Monroe County, W.Va. Columbia Gas of Virginia was a subsidiary of CPG when that pipeline went online in 2014, though last year it was separated off to become a unit of NiSource Inc.

It’s not clear yet when the acquisition will be completed. TransCanada did say last November that it was looking to acquire a company that could help it expand its pipeline network into the Marcellus shale region. With the wounds from its Keystone battle still raw, TransCanada is now shifting some of its attention from Canadian tar sands oil to U.S. natural gas. Climate activists and environmentalists will want to keep a close eye on this soon-to-be-even-larger pipeline giant.

CPG and TransCanada did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

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After Keystone failure, TransCanada comes up with another pipeline scheme in the U.S.

Posted in alo, Anchor, ATTRA, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on After Keystone failure, TransCanada comes up with another pipeline scheme in the U.S.

Wheaton College: Still Standing Despite a Bit of Mild Criticism

by ElisabettaBerger56 Posted on January 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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Perhaps you remember the case of Larycia Hawkins. She’s the professor at Wheaton College who declared on her Facebook page that Muslims and Christians worship the same god. Wheaton College follows the “evangelical Protestant tradition,” which apparently has different thoughts on this matter, and as a result Hawkins is in the process of being fired.

Over at National Review, David French says that this ought to be entirely uncontroversial:

But this is Christian higher education, and the Left is taking direct aim at Christian academic freedom and institutional liberty. In 2014, it launched an ill-fated attack on Gordon College’s accreditation, and last month the LGBT Left issued a report loudly condemning Christian colleges for having the audacity to exercise their statutory and constitutional right to opt out of Title IX. So it should come as no surprise that the Left is rallying around professor Hawkins, trying to pressure Wheaton into yielding on its statement of faith.

I read this over lunch, and with nothing more pressing on my mind than eating a slice of pizza, I decided to click those four links to find out just what kind of pressure the Left was bringing to bear. I urge you to click yourself to check my work. The first three go to a trio of little-read diaries at the Huffington Post. Here are the most impassioned statements I could find in each of the three:

Letter endorsed by Su’ad Abdul Khabeer and 26 others: In our view, the measures taken by Wheaton administrators…dampen the spirit of free inquiry so crucial to the academic environment; ultimately depriving the student body of the benefit of a deeply dedicated educator….We call upon her employers to renew their own commitment to the principles of tolerance and academic freedom.

Ken Wilson: There’s a way out of this morass. But it requires a commitment to the apostolic counsel of Romans 14-15. In a nutshell it boils down to this: we’re going to disagree over highly contentious issues….In the meantime, we can feast ourselves on the rich fare of mere Christianity. In a community shaped by Romans 14-15, there would be plenty of room for Julie Rodgers and Dr. Larycia Hawkins at the table.

Pamela A. Lewis: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? To the extent that Christians and Muslims come from the same Abrahamic tradition, yes they do….However, when it is a question about what these faiths call God and how they worship God, there are significant differences with respect to rituals and patterns of devotion….Whether or not Professor Hawkins has violated Wheaton College’s Statement of Faith will be decided by Wheaton College. But I am with those who believe that she was moved by her understanding of Christ’s commandment to love and stand with the vulnerable and the stranger, whoever they may be at the moment.

That’s…not…really very fiery stuff. I imagine the administrators at Wheaton College can still sleep nights. The fourth link goes to a pretty straightforward CNN story in which Hawkins herself is critical of Wheaton’s actions, which is hardly surprising since she’s the one being fired.

So where do these milquetoast statements leave us? French acknowledges that so far, “the Left has merely used its powers of persuasion to try to move Wheaton from its statement of faith.” But what about tomorrow? “Schools that don’t conform to leftist orthodoxy may soon consequences far worse than a barrage of negative news coverage.”

Maybe so. But it’s always worth clicking the links. If this is the best that the big, bad Left can do—and I assume French would have linked to worse if it existed—I think Christian colleges are probably not in any imminent danger. It’s pretty stunning sometimes just how little criticism it takes to bring out the victim in us all.

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Wheaton College: Still Standing Despite a Bit of Mild Criticism

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