This fall members of BXE are embarking on the FERC Into FREC Roadshow! We’ll be traveling from the shalefields of Pennsylvania down through the path of the MVP and ACP pipelines in West Virginia and Virginia.
We will be making four stops- with more details TBA.
At each of our four stops we will screen the short film “FERC Doesn’t Work” and hold a community discussion on the fight to turn the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) into the Federal Renewable Energy Commission (FREC). FERC is the federal agency responsible for the regulation of all fossil fuel infrastructure and pipelines that cross state lines. As such FERC is a lynchpin in the nationwide movement against fossil fuels and for climate justice!
FREC would oversee the creation of clean energy projects democratically controlled by impacted communities. Recently BXE has seen Democratic Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren publicly endorse the idea of replacing FERC with FREC. BXE is looking to root the FERC Into FREC campaign in the needs of frontline struggles. The Green New Deal has arisen as a means to push the government towards action, but has remained vague and limited in its commitment to frontline communities most impacted by climate chaos and dirty energy projects. We must come together to ensure that marginalized, frontline, grassroots voices are heard in the crafting of any nationwide climate policy.
Following the film there will be participatory discussion of local struggles, ways of bringing frontlines demands to the Green New Deal, and visions for a rising movement to replace FERC!
For more information check out these links!
https://www.facebook.com/BeyondExtremeEnergy/
FERC Into FREC Sign-On Statement
https://tinyurl.com/yyhkvwt3
Bios for Roadshow Presenters:
Jimmy Betts has worked with the Beyond Extreme Energy collective since its founding in 2014 after walking on a pilgrimage across the continent for climate action. These travels have continued through supporting ongoing direct action campaigns against interconnected systems and agents of oppression and destruction. Jimmy attempts to live and work within the confluences of restoration, reparation, adaptation, and front-line community support through a biodiversity of solidarity strategies. Jimmy’s interests include traditional medicine’s practical application, place-based and ancestral Earth skills, walking, reading hardcopy books, and fiddle music.
Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He has prioritized the climate crisis issue since 2004 and was one of the founders of Beyond Extreme Energy in 2014. Following retirement after nine years as the National Campaign Coordinator for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, he has worked since as a volunteer with BXE and several local and state organizations in New Jersey fighting climate disruption and the expansion of new fossil fuel infrastructure. Since 2000 he has written a nationally-distributed Future Hope column of political, social and cultural commentary.
Andy Hinz retired from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 2016. Before directing cybersecurity and IT planning for CFTC for eight years, he was an IT technician and then manager for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for 25 years. Though a public transit commuter, energy conserver, and native plant gardener, he did not grasp the late hour for action to mitigate the climate crisis until he joined the effort to ban fracking in Maryland after reading Frackopoly. He has participated with BXE on several actions at the U.S. Senate and at FERC, being arrested twice, and is active in Baltimore on climate and other issues. Andy lost his oldest child, Reese, to an overdose of fentanyl in 2017 and supports an end the racist war on drugs as well as the war on our atmosphere.
Maple Osterbrink has volunteered for peace, justice and earth conservation since the 1960’s. She “took the earth-conservation pledge as a young girl scout and has held to it.” She retired from several “almost-careers” to North Carolina and is helping out many organizations including BXE, APPPL, Workers’ Assembly and the Raging Grannies. She worked to preserve wetlands in New Hampshire in the mid-90’s as a town conservation commissioner. She is “sick of the corruption, theft and poisoning of democracy, peace, water, food and sustainability.” As an artist she will have mini-projects to do with children, or adults, during the roadshow events.
Beyond Extreme Energy 