Action Alerts

We need full transparency about pollution in our communities

What's At Stake

The public has a right to know about pollution in our backyards. But the process for approving some gas projects could soon cut out critical information about how projects will affect the air we breathe.

Submit a comment opposing rule changes that would make it harder to know about pollution threats in our communities.

Read More

When a company wants to build certain gas pipelines and export projects, it must go through the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC). FERC is a government agency that has broad authority over the electricity and gas sectors. The decisions FERC makes have massive consequences for air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

FERC’s proposal would let gas developers avoid showing the pollution that their projects would produce. Until now, these developers were required to disclose and model their air pollution impacts, which allowed FERC to consider the impact that air pollution would have on the surrounding community.

Now, FERC is trying to do away with that requirement — essentially passing the buck on air pollution, declaring that it would never disqualify a project that state agencies have signed off on. Many of these planned projects are in areas that already have a lot of other industrial pollution sources, and where ambient air pollution levels might be nearing or exceeding federal air quality standards.

By not requiring this air modeling, FERC is leaving itself without information it could use to impose conditions on gas projects to mitigate air pollution. It’s also excusing itself from assessing the cumulative impacts of air pollution. But even if FERC doesn’t require companies to calculate all the air pollution communities will breathe, it still has a mandate to protect them.

FERC is abdicating its responsibility to safely steward the nation’s energy infrastructure. It’s needlessly giving up a tool that can keep pollution out of our lungs, leaving the public in the dark in the process.

Tell FERC you oppose its efforts to reduce transparency about pollution in our communities. 

Residential homes shown in front. Large mounds, and dust or smoke rising from them in the background.
Porter Ranch, California. A gas well failure in October 2015 released noxious fumes for four straight months. (Dave Getzschman for Earthjustice)

10 Days Remain

Delivery to Federal Energy Regulation Commission

Important Notice

Your message is delivered to a public agency, and all information submitted may be placed in the public record. Do not submit confidential information.

By taking action, you will receive emails from Earthjustice. Change your mailing preferences or opt-out at any time. Learn more in our Privacy Policy. This Earthjustice action is hosted on EveryAction. Learn about EveryAction’s Privacy Policy.

Why is a phone number or prefix required on some action forms?

Trouble Viewing This Action?

If the action form is not loading above, please be aware that ad blockers and VPNs may prevent the action form from displaying. Please add earthjustice.org as a trusted website in your ad blocker, and refresh this webpage. (Details.) If the action form still does not display, please report the problem to us at action@earthjustice.org with a screenshot image of the problem. Thank you!

Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.