Standing up to protect the impacted homeowners along the proposed PennEast route, the majority of whom have refused the pipeline and are being threatened by eminent domain, on Friday Senator Cory Booker sent a letter to FERC asking it to recall its Certificate for PennEast, calling the situation “critical” because “fundamental Constitutional rights are at stake”.

Senator Booker’s letter follows requests to FERC to rescind the PennEast Certificate sent by the NJDEP, DRCC, NJ Attorney General, NJ Division of Rate Counsel, NJ Natural Lands Trust, Senators Kip Bateman and Shirley Turner, Assm. Gusciora, and numerous citizens’ and conservation groups.

PRESS STATEMENT

Contact: Tom Gilbert, tom@njconservation.org, (267) 261-7325, or Jennifer Danis, jdanis@easternenvironmental.org, (201) 306-3382

“By calling upon FERC to reconsider its flawed Certificate for PennEast, Senator Booker has taken a definitive step to ensure that private and public lands can’t be seized when the pipeline does not have all of the necessary approvals in place. We share Senator Booker’s serious concerns about the threat that PennEast poses to the property rights of more than 100 homeowners in New Jersey,” said Tom Gilbert, campaign director, NJ Conservation Foundation.

“Senator Booker focused his compelling letter on the troubling ways in which FERC tramples on Constitutional rights when it fails to follow the law and engages in practices that are designed to limit judicial review. FERC ought to be concerned that elected officials are seeing the whole picture – and it doesnt look pretty,” said Jennifer Danis, senior staff attorney, Eastern Environmental Law Center. “The Senator laid out the case for why PennEast’s land grab should be stopped.”

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