office of public participation within the federal energy regulatory commission known to us as the ferc and has never been acted despite prior authorization. with the expansion of natural gas infrastructure in the northeast and across the country, it makes sense that we finally fund the office of public participation to better incorporate the voices of average citizens in ferc proceedings and provide robust outreach efforts to communities and individuals that are impacted by energy projects. considering the broad authority that the ferc has over domestic energy markets and its control over the approval of energy infrastructure projects, average citizens simply do not have a sufficient public interest presence on the national level. with 27 states offering an existing consumer advocacy office, it is imperative that a similar national office be established within the ferc. constituents in my home state of new hampshire are all-too familiar with feeling of being shut out of the ferc process. the recently withdrawn northeast energy direct natural gas pipeline would have impacted 18 small to

playwrights delighted showing them consuming these creatures or having characters attempt to them with ferc's seed rats. rats --s seed fricaseed rats. of rad-eater and mouse-eater also pervaded the world of advertisement. i chinese man with mouth open wide, poised to consume a rat forared on a poison label rats. another, for an exterminator. after them.e named the good luck liniment company had a product called the chinese rat destroyer. they devour it eagerly, the boasted, confusing and combining rat-eater and rats. one chinese character was even ." ed "rats in one astonishing cartoon, a chinese immigrant ship approaches america, the chinese jump off, the boat is rats on the far right. men.arrive in america as they are pictured simultaneously as rodent and human, metamorphoses seemingly at will between. graphic images of the chinese as quasi-human reflect the appetite of politicians in washington, perhaps again, in this room, who no doubt lend support to those seeking to exclude them from american shores and deny them citizenship. the picture presented is far from complete will stop american

it makes dangerous and unnecessary changes to the ferc natural gas pipeline citing process. it harms electricity consumers at all levels by interfering with competitive electricity markets to subsidize ungenerating facilities and these facilities would be rejected by the market in favor of lower cost natural gas and renewable options. it strikes language in current law that requires federal buildings be designed to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. it creates loopholes that would permit hydropower operators to dodge compliance with environmental laws, including the clean water act, and gives preferential treatment to electric utilities at the expense of states, tribes, farmers and sportsmen. and it contains an energy efficiency title that if enacted would actually result in the net increase in consumption and greenhouse gas emissions compared to current law. so frankly, mr. speaker, this is not a legitimate exercise in legislating and it speaks volumes about the total lack of seriousness with which house republicans are approaching this conference. we should be trying to n

and ferc does it, epa, everybody.if you don't like this, absolutely the way our government functions. the essence of reasonable risk assessment is to look at things across the board. there are things that present greater danger. that's okay with me. the final thing about the threat, look, there's no connection i know of, any technical person i heard tells me in simple terms between cyberthreat and the kind of surveillance on talking about, on encryption nadine and i agree. we don't need to go to the there's no connection between the government collecting the metadata and combining it with other information in the public domain from dozens and dozens of public databases and using computing to precipitate out subjects. it's a straw man on charges they. the classical strawman. i think the government should harden up as much as possible but nothing to do with it. besides that's not an issue. the final point is this. i don't care if terrorism is not the one threat or number two threat. it is a huge that. that's number one

ferc approves of the pipeline. according to the company, ferc's final environmental review of the proposed pipeline concluded that environmental impacts would be reduced to, quote, less than significant levels. a year and a half later, the state of new york decided to deny certification necessary to issue construction permits. the williams group worked with the state for three years, including two one-year extensions requested by the state. and yet the state asserted that information provided by the company concerning the 250 or so stream crossings was incomplete. . the company refuted the assertions saying, quote, completely contrary to the new york d.e.c.'s assertion, we provided detailed drawings and profiles for every stream crossing in new york, including showing depth of pipe. in fact, all stream crossings were fully vetted with the d.e.c. throughout the review process. we are appalled. amazingly federal regulations provide no recourse to challenge a state's rejection of a section 401 certification. so consti

he issued a letter and sent it to ferc, the federal energy regulatory commission, about a month ago,ing he wanted this pipeline construction halted until an independent risk assessment could be done. , we always talk about them captured bythey are the industry. they are really a new agency. all of their funding comes from the fossil fuel industry. if there were no new projects, there would be no agency. amy: last year, the fang collective, recorded a series of interviews with a whistleblower who worked as a contract safafey inspector on spectra's aim pipeline. his voice has been distorted. >> we had an excavator that flipped over, i would have to guess but i would be remiss to say he was easily 50,000 pounds, flipped over on a jobsite. the rest of it telling down the field. where a the situation crane forgets to unhook from the front of the crane and starts to bloom out. when you do that, the cable is supposed to bit longer -- get longer, but it didn't. his hit a 10 inch play. what if that would have been live pressurized plate? it could have led to a huge and for mental safety issue

withdrawal per 35.15: notice of termination of the 1987 ccsf interconnection agreement pg&e rate schedule ferc no. 114 to be effective june 30, 2015.case no.: er15-702-000/date filed: december 23, 2014 30. conference with >> mayor lee: welcome to the public laggard on not going to ruin the morning by my spanish but i want to at least say, hola, welcome. we are here i merely because of supervisor scott weiner and he's been a champion for working families and i want to say, thank you, supervisor for doing this and bring us together. we are here at our san francisco name the library for the good reason that our librarian and all the wonderful friends and people that he serves to our public library process system has said that we need to have libraries that are connected to all of our communities. this is one way that the library is connected. there directed and so many other ways, but one way is really to have a room dedicated to our spanish-speaking families and people who want to make sure that they can learn the languages that are appropriate for here, so they can better themselves. have their

as powerful and quote, unquote independent as the epa or the fec or ferc is, and as powerful over those entities are over their slices economy and there is reason why the fed chair is called the second most powerful person in the united states after the president and after some side, the second most powerful person in the world after pope francis. it is not power alone but independence. i want to peel back some of the mystery behind that term, independence. i want to push back with walter badge get, uncertainty of interlocutors, where each of us knows where we stand on the question, are you for the fed or against it. perhaps we put our guns back in holsters and ask harder questions what do we mean bit term independence. it is ubiquitous with discussion of fed. i want to talk more about what that is we have a standard account and use it to just if i it at the central bank. politicians, usually talking about the president facing national electorate, national bankers, usually we mean the fed chair and the reason for the separation is so that the fed chair can use purely technocratic tools

or ferc is and as powerful those entities are over their slices over the economy, there is a reason why the fed chair is sometimes called the second most powerful person in the united states after the president, or as some have said the second most powerful person in the world after pope francis. it is not power alone. it is independence. today i want to peel back some of the mystery behind that term, independence, and i want to push back with walter bagehot against some of the certainty of the interlocutors, those eager disputeants who demand to know where each of us stand on the question -- are you for the fed or against it? perhaps we can put our gun back ask holster a bit and the questions -- what is the fed, and what do we mean by this term independence? it is ubiquitous in the iscussions of the fed. fed independence is a sleel separation between politicians -- usually we're talking about the president facing a national electorate and central bankers. usually we mean the fed chair. and the reason for the separation is so the fed chair can use fairly technocratic tools and skills of

ferc, local governments, tribes and n.g.o.'s and everybody gets in before a high trow plant goes online. they await final approval and pending currently before the commission in 45 states. mr. speaker, this is not parochial. there are 80,000 nonpowered dams across the u.s. that could accept hydropower. there are 600 that have the capability to produce energy, 80,000 and 6,000 -- correction, 600. pennsylvania has 678 megawatts of untapped power in the form of hydro. mr. speaker, i thank the chairman for the opportunity to offer the amendment. i understand that the $15 million concerns some members and i'm concerned about spending. in the hopes of a bipartisan proposal, this one is bipartisan and i'm hopeful there will be others to follow and i will withdraw this amendment at this time, and i thank you, mr. speaker. the chair: without objection, the amendment is withdrawn. for what purpose does the gentlelady rise? >> i have an amendment at the esk. page 50, line 21, after the dollar amount reduce by $9 million. the chair: the ge