Rachel Elliott is a reporter with Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
Federal energy officials have been examining challenges faced during the winter and extreme cold weather events across several forums this fall, including one last month in Vermont.
But for each event, anti-fossil fuel activists say officials have done too little to let people know about what’s going on.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hosted the New England Winter Gas-Electric Forum in South Burlington on Sept. 8 to examine energy hurdles in past and future winters. Officials put out notices for the event ahead of time, but activists who protested at the forum that day believe regulators need to do a better job reaching people.
“The FERC website and docket system hardly make sense to someone outside of the industry — how do we make that information digestible for the consumers and landowners that these fossil fuel projects impact?” asked Julie Macuga, organizer for the New England group No Coal No Gas. “How can we break down the inaccessible jargon, and make our comments actually heard?”
Macuga and other members of the activist group took a perhaps unexpected approach to protest that day at the Hilton Doubletree hotel, where the event was held.
They stood outside the conference room to hand out goodie bags containing fliers, homemade cookies and pieces of coal taken from one of New England’s last coal plants — a strategy some attendees seemed to appreciate.
The commission is promoting another forum on some of the same topics Friday in Washington, D.C., with the North American Energy Standards Board, an organization that develops standards for the natural gas and electricity industries. Commission leaders asked the board this summer to convene the forum to try to make the nation’s natural gas and electric grid systems more reliable in the wake of the February 2021 freeze in Texas and other parts of the south-central U.S. — which knocked out power for millions of homes. The forum is expected to feature organization officials and power industry representatives.
The commission’s public outreach efforts for this national-focused forum match the ones used for the South Burlington event — with which No Coal No Gas took issue.
The activist group has no plans to protest the upcoming forum, but members think it demonstrates the same lack of transparency they protested last month, Macuga said.
The public notices for both events, along with the option for people to attend in person or watch online, reflect an apparent increase in the federal commission’s outreach efforts. As part of last November’s federal infrastructure act, the commission created an office aimed at boosting public understanding of its processes and public participation in its activities.
“The commission takes public participation in its proceedings very seriously,” said spokesperson representative Celeste Miller. “At the (South Burlington forum), FERC’s Office of Public Participation was on the ground to respond to questions and concerns from members of the public. … In addition, the location of the forum was chosen so that it would be more accessible to those who might be interested in hearing about these issues.”
Miller also said that the video of the forum and a call for public comment on the forum are now available on the commission website. The deadline for public comment is Nov. 7.
Macuga called the new office “an awesome first step” but said there’s a long way to go to make the commission’s work accessible to the public.
“(No Coal No Gas) knew (the September event) was happening because we are following these issues extremely closely — people who aren’t already aware of FERC’s influence or part of navigating the inaccessible bureaucracy of energy regulation aren’t necessarily going to know this kind of event is happening,” Macuga said. “It wasn’t, from what I could tell, an event that had a ton of intentional outreach … in fact, it was difficult just to find where in the hotel the event was even being held.”
So the activists gave out goodie bags. The coal in each came from New Hampshire’s Merrimack Generation Station, one of the last coal-fired power plants left in New England. Group members had taken the coal during a series of demonstrations in 2019 and 2020 in which activists broke into the plant to “remove the coal from the fires of climate catastrophe,” the group says on its website.
The activists had special bags for notable attendees, including Richard Glick, the commission chair; James Danly, a commission member; and Gordon van Welie, CEO of ISO New England, the nonprofit company that manages the electrical grid in New England. Danly and van Welie refused to take the bags, while Glick took his.
Macuga said the group wanted to get its message across without threatening the relationship the activists are working to develop with the commission’s public participation office.
“Sometimes being overly friendly accomplishes more than yelling,” Macuga said.
And the approach seemed effective; activists made polite small talk with attendees and weren’t kicked out by security. A few guests complimented the cookies. One attendee asked if he could get a couple extra goodie bags for his wife and kids.
“On our end, it’s actually really exciting to have captured their attention,” Macuga said, “but the public at large still needs more on-ramps.”
People interested in the upcoming forum can register through the commission’s website, but the sign-up link has yet to be published. The Friday meeting is one of three that’ll be held this fall and winter as part of the forum. Right now, the other meetings are slated for Nov. 8 and Dec. 1.