{"id":3439,"date":"2014-08-05T10:33:57","date_gmt":"2014-08-05T14:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/?p=3439"},"modified":"2014-08-05T10:33:57","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T14:33:57","slug":"connecting-some-dots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/08\/05\/connecting-some-dots\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting Some Dots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re working on\u00a0a positive post (believe it or not!) that we&#8217;ve been meaning to get to for a while. But things just keep getting in the way. First, the <a title=\"Breaking News: Frackers Follow Enbridge\" href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/06\/25\/breaking-news-frackers-follow-enbridge\/\" target=\"_blank\">Rover news<\/a> broke, then we went on vacation in Minnesota, where we spoke to the <a title=\"Meet Sandpiper\" href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/07\/29\/meet-sandpiper\/\" target=\"_blank\">Friends of the Headwaters<\/a>), then Enbridge once again <a title=\"Enbridge Disregards Another Local Ordinance\" href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/07\/18\/enbridge-disregards-another-local-ordinance\/\" target=\"_blank\">flouted a local ordinance<\/a>, then they went around <a title=\"When Did the Marshall Spill Happen?\" href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/07\/29\/a-history-lesson-for-brad-shamla\/\" target=\"_blank\">trying to erase and rewrite history<\/a>, and then <a title=\"Enbridge (Says It) Values Landowner Relationships\" href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/08\/04\/enbridge-says-it-values-landowner-relationships\/\" target=\"_blank\">peddled some more untruths<\/a>. Enbridge has been giving us so many negative things to write about that we haven&#8217;t had time to mention a positive one. But stay tuned for that very soon.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, we thought we&#8217;d call your attention to a couple of\u00a0national news items that ought to be of some interest, since what is happening around the country&#8211; to the west and to the east&#8211; is also happening (or, in other\u00a0cases, <em>should<\/em> happen) here in Michigan. So let&#8217;s connect a few dots:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you haven&#8217;t seen <a href=\"http:\/\/insideclimatenews.org\/news\/20140804\/san-bruno-gas-blast-case-cozy-emails-between-judge-and-defendant\" target=\"_blank\">the latest from <em>Inside Climate News <\/em><\/a>regarding the ongoing scandal surrounding the California Public Utilities Commission and its (mis)handling of matters related to the terrible San Bruno explosion, you&#8217;ll want to take a look at Elizabeth Douglas&#8217;s latest piece. As always, it&#8217;s excellent\u00a0journalism, although the appalling story Douglas\u00a0tells of the cozy relations between regulators and industry is sure to raise your blood pressure. What&#8217;s happened in California is especially egregious and maybe extreme. But we think\u00a0it&#8217;s also emblematic of the kinds of close ties between regulators and the companies they&#8217;re supposed to regulate all over the country. We caught <a href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2013\/01\/23\/phase-2-proceedings-part-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">plenty of glimpses<\/a> of this<a href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2013\/01\/27\/phase-two-proceedings-part-3\/\" target=\"_blank\"> industry-friendliness<\/a> during the MPSC proceedings to approve the Line 6B replacement. As <a href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2013\/02\/06\/enbridge-re-writes-michigan-law\/\" target=\"_blank\">our series showed<\/a>, Enbridge <a href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2013\/02\/20\/mpsc-giving-away-the-store\/\" target=\"_blank\">pretty much owned that process.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Which is all the more reason for citizens to speak up and speak out and take action. That&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/earthfirstjournal.org\/newswire\/2014\/08\/03\/massachusetts-landowners-block-pipeline-surveyors\/\" target=\"_blank\">what&#8217;s happening in Massachusetts currently<\/a>, as residents there make it clear that they want no part of a newly proposed natural gas pipeline. Their actions should be an inspiration to landowners along the <a title=\"No Need, No Rover\" href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/07\/17\/no-need-no-rover\/\" target=\"_blank\">proposed ET Rover pipeline<\/a>. Their first act of resistance: refusing the pipeline company permission to survey&#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/07\/09\/et-rovers-unnecessary-land-grab-featuring-a-cameo-appearance-by-enbridge\/\" target=\"_blank\">something we&#8217;ve recommended here<\/a> and that many of you, or so we&#8217;ve heard, are already doing. It also looks like there&#8217;s a good chance <a title=\"Rover Resistance Heats Up\" href=\"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/08\/01\/rover-resistance-heats-up\/\" target=\"_blank\">some townships will do the same<\/a> and also voice their opposition to Rover publicly and formally.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s the wild west for oil and gas expansions all across the country right now, a reckless gold rush. Despite what the energy and pipeline companies will tell you, these infrastructure projects are not taking place with the best interests of local communities, landowners, and the environment uppermost in mind. And unfortunately, the\u00a0agencies charged to protect those interests only seem to serve the interests of industry. That just leaves, well, us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re working on\u00a0a positive post (believe it or not!) that we&#8217;ve been meaning to get to for a while. But things just keep getting in the way. First, the Rover news broke, then we went on vacation in Minnesota, where we spoke to the Friends of the Headwaters), then Enbridge once again flouted a local [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond-6b","category-et-rover"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3439"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3441,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3439\/revisions\/3441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}