Enbridge "Informs" MA On Gas Transfer Station W. Pet White Papers, Support From Koch, ALEC Players

As part of an ongoing health evaluation of a proposed and contested Boston metro area gas compressor station, the energy distribution company Enbridge shared with the State of Massachusetts materials from dubious and controversial sources. As documents obtained by DeSmog reveal, these include studies by a climate change denier and an official associated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Koch brothers-backed group working to undermine environmental regulations.

For critics of the project, this newest revelation raises further questions about the appropriateness of constructing the 7,700-horsepower station, which would release noxious gases while propelling natural gas through pipelines, in a densely populated area between Weymouth and Quincy, south of Boston.

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Another link Enbridge provided was to a presentation by Ron Gore, an Alabama official who in 2014 reportedly participated in a secretive meeting at an ALEC conference in Washington D.C., convened to fight Obama-era environmental regulations. ALEC’s work on energy regulatory rollbacks is funded by the oil industry and a network of foundations such as the Charles Koch Foundation, the Searle Freedom Trust, and Donors Trust, dubbed the “dark money ATM” of the conservative movement. Later, Gore played an active role in Alabama’s opposition to the Obama EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which was designed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. His presentation Enbridge shared with the MAPC is titled “What is Wrong With the Clean Air Act?”

In a subsequent email, Enbridge sent the MAPC a white paper on compressor stations by the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), an industry trade group. The paper, “How the Regulatory Process Protects Those Living Near Gas Transmission Compressor Stations,” praises the current regulatory regime and defends the gas industry’s safety record. It was included and briefly summarized in the final HIA report. Yet the HIA report failed to disclose that the white paper was in fact written for the INGAA by Trinity Consultants — an environmental firm hired by Enbridge to conduct the air pollution modeling for the Weymouth station, data that the HIA relied upon.

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/13/enbridge-massachusetts-climate-denier-alec-weymouth-compressor-gas