New York Public Service Commission Votes NO to National Grid’s Request For $70 Million of Public Money to Construct Liquefied Fracked Gas (LNG) Vaporizers

No North Brooklyn Pipeline Alliance, Sane Energy Project, Alliance for a Green Economy, and Earthjustice celebrate today’s Public Service Commission (PSC) decision denying the gas utility National Grid’s proposal to build the unnecessary fracked gas vaporizers in North Brooklyn, following a three-year fight. Groups call on the NY Department of Environmental Conservation to immediately follow suit and deny the project’s air permit.

Today, in a victory for National Grid’s downstate customers, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) determined that the liquefied fracked “natural” gas (LNG) vaporizers located at National Grid’s storage facility in Greenpoint, Brooklyn are not needed for at least the next 5 years. With the PSC’s decision, the company cannot raise the rates of National Grid customers to pay for the $70 million project, and can only recover $10.5 million of the $48.8 million the company has already spent on the vaporizers. The PSC’s decision came after an independent consultant found there is no need for the proposed vaporizers in the near future. An expert retained by Sane Energy Project, Alliance for a Green Economy, and Earthjustice further found that the proposed project would negatively burden nearby communities already suffering from a high pollution burden, in violation of the environmental justice provisions of New York’s climate law.

The final decision on whether National Grid can build the vaporizers now moves back to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which, despite opposition to the project from thousands of community residents, has delayed making a decision on this project for nearly three years. While the DEC continues to evaluate National Grid’s air permit application, the agency took the unusual step in May 2022 of inviting the PSC to determine whether the project is needed. Unlike the DEC, the PSC is the state agency which regulates monopoly utilities in New York. Now that the PSC has ruled that the project is not needed, the DEC must deny the company’s air permit application.

“We don’t need any more toxic infrastructure going through our homes and our hoods! We fought and will continue to courageously fight to protect our lands from those vested in communal exploitation and corrupt motives that don’t represent our wellbeing. We deserve climate and environmental justice action without compromise in our lifetimes, meaningful change comes from consistent courageous acts that challenge the status quo and stop business as usual! We must continue to act for justice and keep pushing for accountability,” Adérìnsolá Babawale, Youth Leader with No North Brooklyn Pipeline Alliance.

“What happened here today was a remarkable act not because of the Public Service Commission’s decision — as we believe it is their duty to adamantly oppose the expansion of the fossil fuel industry — but an act of commUNITY as activists, neighborhood groups, nonprofits, coalitions, and energy experts have all been working in step over the past three years to bring this decision to the forefront. The Public Service Commission made the right decision today but we need to deny this project for good and halt the expansion of fracked gas infrastructure now and in the future, says Kier Blake, co-founder and director of Community Partnerships at Start: Empowerment.

“Our community has spent more than three years demanding that state agencies do their job,” said Kim Fraczek, director of Sane Energy Project, which filed a lawsuit along with New York City Housing Authority’s Cooper Park Resident Council against New York State and National Grid over the proposed project. “We must take serious action on climate, and prioritize our communities’ health and economies and our ecosystem over the profits of CEO’s and shareholders. We will escalate if National Grid tries this again. We will stop this toxic company once and for all, and move New York to renewable public power for everyone.”

“Brooklyn has reason to celebrate today,” said Greenpoint resident Kevin LaCherra. “These LNG vaporizers are only the latest in a long line of environmentally devastating fossil fuel infrastructure that have plagued working people in North Brooklyn for 150 years. We need the DEC to finally do their job and put people over industry profit.”

“New Yorkers and people everywhere are affected and dying because of climate change,” said Hélène Filion Onserud, a Sunset Park, Brooklyn resident. From the deaths in Buffalo in January’s blizzard to deaths from summer heat waves in Brooklyn, to flooding deaths in New York City when Ida hit in 2021, we know these tragedies are due to extreme weather exacerbated by climate change. The DEC must act NOW to halt these vaporizers and prevent National Grid from building unneeded infrastructure.”

“Today was a major win towards the more just and sustainable city our communities need. The PSC also made it very clear that without active and consistent grassroots organizing the powers that be will continue to create extractive, racist, polluting systems.” said Ash Drury, a Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn resident. “If it wasn’t for our community’s activism over the last three years; from canvassing to direct action blocking National Grid’s construction, we would be two fracked gas vaporizers and more than $60 million further into climate emergency. Let today inspire us to continue fighting.”

“Today, the Public Service Commission did the right thing,” said Ruhan Nagra, director of the Environmental Justice Clinic at the University of Utah. “We are hopeful that the Commission’s decision foreshadows a broader commitment by state agencies to New York’s landmark climate law, which makes clear that fossil fuel projects like this one have no place in our future.”

“We congratulate and celebrate with the tenacious advocates and residents who have doggedly fought National Grid’s fracked gas expansion in Brooklyn, forcing the state to finally get an independent consultant to look at the vaporizers and other projects, instead of relying on the utility to tell them what is needed,” said Jessica Azulay, executive director of Alliance for a Green Economy. “We are relieved that the Public Service Commission made the right decision in this case, but we shouldn’t have to spend years fighting every gas expansion project anymore. It’s time for the state to take environmental racism and our climate law seriously and direct the gas utilities to facilitate the transition to renewable heating.”

“We are very pleased with the Commission’s decision. It’s so encouraging to see the PSC no longer rubber-stamp every polluting, expensive, and dangerous fossil fuel project that sadly have been too often placed in communities of color,” said Meagan Burton, senior attorney at Earthjustice. “However, the Commission limited their decision to the independent consultant’s gas demand forecast, ignoring the health burdens this project will inevitably place on the surrounding community. New York’s climate law makes clear we need to stop expanding unsafe and dirty fossil fuel infrastructure, and instead begin to decarbonize the building sector.”