There have been so many events and rallies lately, we haven't had a chance to catch up on all the news, including how much Spectra has BEEN in the news lately. Below, a quick summary of recent events, but if you want to stay up to the minute with us, connect to our facebook page, where actions and alerts get posted first. Thanks as always for all your support!

Unbeknownst to us, someone from Move On decided Spectra was just too outrageous to be believed, so she started an online petition which will be sent to Mayor Bloomberg, Christine Quinn, the state legislature and Senators Schumer and Gillabrand. By the time this email hits your inbox, the petition will likely have reached its goal of 2,000 signatures, but since Quinn and Company chose to ignore 5,000 earlier petitions, let's blow past the 2,000 goal and go for a truly big number. Maybe, it being an election cycle and all, the pols will listen up this time.

The Radon Forum created a flurry of calls from reporters, asking what the big deal was. Several reports are still being written but one published account appeared in the International Business Times. (IBT). While Spectra provided their usual sound bites of "meets or exceeds Federal regulations, blah blah bah," Sane Energy Project founding member Owen Crowley responded by saying, "We don’t like the idea of further committing to natural gas, it’s replacing one problem with another.”

Duke University blogger Bill Chameides filed Another Pipeline, Another Controversy. After covering the usual economic arguments, saying, there's "much to commend the planned pipeline," Bill goes on to quote our website at length, including a section where we list the dangers to the "residents, businesses, galleries, schools, religious and cultural institutions of downtown Manhattan, Staten Island, and Jersey City." Bill ends his piece by asking, "Is that alarmist or just plain sane?"

Then there's our favorite post, "FERC denies Marcellus Shale natural gas radon lung cancer risk claim," written by one of Spectra's lawyers, who's done all kinds of fine work in the public service, in his own words, having "Protected corporations against claims" regarding windblown uranium dust, nuclear exposure, and other things that never harmed anyone.

FERC has granted permission for the Minisink Compressor station, part of the Millennium pipeline system, to go on line despite a study showing operation could be hazardous. "We have a study that concludes there will be a major safety threat if this station goes on line, yet no federal agency will accept responsibility to determine whether the operation will be safe,” said Carolyn Elefant, Washington D.C. based lawyer representing Minisink residents. "This is a loophole in safety regulations big enough to drive a compressor station through.” As with Spectra, construction of the compressor station was ok'd despite pending legal action. Adding insult to injury, a gas fired power plant is now planned for nearby Wawayanda. Emissions from the plant and compressor station could mean major health problems for residents, many of whom are 9/11 first responders who moved to the area for the "clean country air." A petition against the power plant will be sent to the town supervisor.

Alert anyone you know in the Constitution State: Not only is the Constitution pipeline aiming to send fracked Marcellus gas their way, now Spectra wants to expand its Algonquin line, and has been scheduling scoping meetings with landowners near Danbury. And Connecticut may be about to head down the same wrongeaded path as NYC: "The meetings come as state lawmakers assess a comprehensive energy plan that includes offering financing to homeowners and businesses to eliminate the upfront cost of converting furnaces, boilers and other appliances from oil to natural gas." Just as in New York, more sustainable options such as biodiesel offer far cleaner emissions with far less expensive upfront conversion costs. In city apartment buildings, conversions to gas start around $50,000 and easily surpass half a million dollars or more; while conversions to BioD can run as low as $10,000. What Connecticut should be doing is offering a rebate the way New York does: a 20% discount that makes BioD about the same price as number 6 oil (the cheapest fuel oil).

The LA Times reported that California's Public Utilities Commission has recommended the largest fine ever levied, against Pacific Gas & Electric for their responsibility in the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion. The cost to build the Spectra pipeline is $1.2 billion. When the FERC environmental impact study examined the risk of the Spectra, they said the chances of dying in a pipeline explosion were less than one's chances of dying in a car crash. We'd like to know which car crash has ever created enough damage to warrant a $2.25 billion fine.

When we lie awake at night thinking of what's scarier than an explosive pipeline next to one's house, TPP comes to mind. The Trans-Pacific partnership, a secretive trade agreement, could undo any protections from local fracking bans, not to mention other major economic and sovereignty losses.

The Huffington Post calls TPP "Obama's Economic Vision: The U.S. as a Third World Nation."
But even the uber-conservative New American (mouthpiece of the John Birch Society), after lambasting our socialist president, says TPP is "Secretly Trading Away Our Independence." Yowsa.

Please attend: What You Can Do to Impact the Biggest Trade Deal Ever to find out what you can do. Tuesday, May 28th, 6:30- 9pm, ALL SOULS UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH – enter Reidy Hall via garden at 1157 Lexington Avenue, between 79th and 80th Streets, Manhattan.

If you like what Sane Energy Project as been up to, please help support the work we do by becoming a member or donating to our legal battle against Spectra. We appreciate donations of time as well as money, so if you'd like to offer an hour or two, please email us at contact@SaneEnergyProject.org. Thanks for everything!