FACT CHECK: Ignoring Facts, NRDC Calls Pipelines “Dangerous” and “Reckless”

CLAIM: The Natural Resources Defense Council claims that a proposed pipeline that would run through New Jersey is a “dangerous” and “reckless” project and that they will use “every tool in the kit to stop this dangerous pipeline from ever being built.”

RATING: False

FACT CHECK

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) concludes that pipelines “enable the safe movement of extraordinary quantities of energy products to industry and consumers, literally fueling our economy and way of life.” The PHMSA also says pipelines are “one of the safest and least costly ways to transport energy products.”

Further, the PHMSA says pipelines alleviate the need for other, less safe means of transportation:

“It would take a constant line of tanker trucks, about 750 per day, loading up and moving out every two minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to move the volume of even a modest pipeline. The railroad-equivalent of this single pipeline would be a train of 225, 28,000 gallon tank cars.”

There are more than 2.6 million miles of pipelines that “safely deliver trillions of cubic feed of natural gas and hundreds of billions of tons/miles of liquid petroleum products each year,” according to the PHMSA.

While New Jersey has temporarily declined to approve permits for the pipeline, the company plans to adjust its plan and reapply.