Spin That Borders On Fake News
Gov. Murphy’s Sycophants Manufacture A Lie
[Update: 9/27/21 – PennEast announced today that they pulled the plug on the pipeline. I will post my take on the reasons why. For now, I’ll just say that it is incredibly ironic that the so called “opponents” (Tom Gilbert, NJCF, et al) are getting credit for killing the pipeline, when they refused to engage the issue that killed the pipeline (i.e. the Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality Certification by DEP) and instead wasted resources and activists’ time on 2 failed strategies: 1) FERC review and 2) private landowner and state land conservation & eminent domain. Anyone that follows my work is aware of the fact that I’ve been urging activists to focus on 401 WQC for many years. The below post is accurate based on the facts that were in the public record when it was written. I stand by it.~~~ end update].
[Update: 9/24/21 – The Philadelphia Inquirer does some real reporting, with new information (to me at least) which suggests the pipeline is indeed in trouble:
Four of the five companies have told investors recently that their investments in PennEast were “impaired,” including New Jersey Resources Corp., South Jersey Industries Inc., the Southern Co. Inc., and a subsidiary of UGI Corp. of Valley Forge, the project operator. The four companies wrote off about $354 million from their books, nearly their entire investment in PennEast.
But Gov. Murphy, the AG’s losing litigation strategy, DEP permit review, and sycophants like Tom Gilbert had very little to do with that corporate financial decision. ~~~ end update]
NJ Spotlight reported today that the PennEast pipeline company had entered into an agreement with the NJ Attorney General’s Office
The sub-headline to the story is:
Foes say company likely concluded that it wouldn’t get DEP permits
The only facts of the story relate to this:
The company’s decision not to pursue eminent-domain claims on 42 parcels of publicly owned land was announced in an agreement with the Attorney General’s office and recorded in a brief notice sent on Sept. 20 to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which is overseeing the company’s claims.
The “brief notice” is a purely procedural and voluntary agreement in principle:
Please be advised that the parties to these consolidated matters have agreed in principle to a stipulated voluntary dismissal of these matters. As such, the parties request that all forty-two (42) of these matters be sent back to the District Court for purposes of effectuating that stipulation.
This has nothing to do with DEP permits.
The Attorney General’s Office made no statement on the substance of the “agreement in principle”.
That temporary, voluntary, non-substantive, procedural “agreement” – which narrowly applies only to pending litigation involving 42 eminent domain claims on State land – was wildly spun by Gov. Murphy’s sycophants and cheerleaders as signaling the cancellation of the project due to the likely denial of DEP permits.
NJ Spotlight then printed this fact free speculative spin in a highly misleading way – from the headline through the entire narrative of the story – to mislead readers and create a completely false impression that the project is dead because DEP would not approve permits.
But the AG did exactly the opposite of the impression created by the Spotlight story and Murphy sycophants.
In the AG’s Office quote printed by Spotlight, the AG made these 3 crucial admissions, each one of which destroys the false narrative spun by Spotlight::
1) they confirmed that the PennEast pipeline was “still pushing ahead with plans to build”
2) they admitted that the PenEast attempt to take State land by eminent domain was merely a “pause”
3) After creating a nationally damaging precedent and suffering a humiliating loss before the US Supreme Court, they doubled down on pending litigation, claiming “we will ultimately prevail in court” (the only NJ AG pending litigation is on the eminent domain issues, not DEP permits).
Here it is in its entirety:
“We are pleased that after three years of litigation, PennEast has finally paused on trying to take state land,” Moore said in a statement. “Although the company is still pushing ahead with plans to build an unnecessary and ill-conceived pipeline, we will continue to lead the fight against it, and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail in court.”
Notably absent from the story was a statement by the Murphy DEP itself – the agency that pipeline foes are claiming would deny permits.
And Spotlight repeated the lie that DEP previously denied PennEast permits.
Ironically, the source Spotlight quoted as claiming victory and falsely asserting that DEP would deny permits is the same guy who has failed to mount a focused campaign of public pressure on the Gov. and DEP and exactly those regulatory permit powers! (In another irony, this is an issue NJ Spotlight has failed to cover). Instead, this incompetent hack fought a losing battle for years at FERC and on public lands issues.
Remarkably, this is not the first time this fool prematurely and falsely spiked the ball. As I wrote:
Does anyone remember, no so long ago, when Tom Gilbert spiked the ball and claimed that a federal court had “stopped PennEast in its tracks”?
[Update – check out this Orwellian reconstruction of history these folks are spinning – from the lawyer who prompted the failed Supreme Court legal strategy on eminent domain: (E&E News)
If PennEast chooses to resume the process of seizing land for its pipeline, the developer would have to start from scratch, said Jennifer Danis, an attorney representing the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.
“It’s interesting to hear PennEast describe this as pausing the project due to regulatory uncertainty,” she said. “It has been our view from the data in the record all along that the project cannot be built consistent with Clean Water Act standards.”
“all along”? Are you kidding me? NJCF hardly mentioned the Clean Water Act, never demanded that DEP deny the WQC, and they focused almost exclusively on failed FERC and land conservation issues. ~~~ end update]
Apparently, no DEP permit applications were withdrawn or FERC proceedings cancelled – as evidenced by the AG’s own statement that “the company is still pushing ahead with plans to build” .
Obviously, the AG’s Office provided this vague “brief notice” and issued a press statement with the understanding that their sycophantic friends and lightweight press corps would spin the story exactly the way Spotlight did.
And they did that just weeks before an election, in the wake of the Ida flood disaster, a time when Gov. Murphy is extremely vulnerable to criticism of doing absolutely nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and abdicating responsibility for failed “resilience” projects.
I fired off this note to reporter Jon Hurdle and his editor John Mooney:
The NJ AG’s Office is quoted admitted this:
“the company is still pushing ahead with plans to build an unnecessary and ill-conceived pipeline“
DEP made no statement on the regulatory policy of the Murphy Administration or the regulatory status of the project.
The company made no statement of terminating the project.
I think FERC recently provided a significant extension.
We’re on the eve of an election.
Yet you still spin this story as the project is dead.
This is spun so badly it’s Fake News.
Shame on you.
Wolfe
End Note: and while the sycophants and lightweight media are so focused on land owner and eminent domain issues, take a look at the FERC-ing climate policy elephant in the room they ignore:
FIRST GHG EMISSIONS ANALYSIS IN CERTIFICATION PROCESS
In the 2021 NOI, FERC asked how, “[i]n conducting an analysis of the impact of a project’s [greenhouse gas (GHG)] emissions, . . . the Commission [could] determine the significance of these emissions’ contributions to climate change.” Prior to its issuance of the 2021 NOI, FERC had never assessed in its certification process the GHG emissions of a proposed natural gas facility.
Just like FERC, NJ DEP does not consider climate impacts in its permit reviews and Clean Water Act Water Quality Certification – critical material facts the Murphy sycophants ands NJ Spotlight never tell you. ~~~ end]