If you visited Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey last weekend, you will have had the opportunity to travel back in time. This year marks the 241st anniversary of General George Washington’s famous Christmas night crossing of the Delaware River in 1776. More than 100 colonial re-enactors were in the park to participate in Revolutionary War Weekend, which included “educational programs,” “colonial life demonstrations,” and historical talks about the pivotal events of the revolutionary period.
For those that did make the trip, there was no escape from contemporary public policy disputes. The roadways in and around the park and the adjoining neighbors include signs that say “We the People Say No to PennEast.” There are other versions of the signs that all take aim against a proposed 120-mile, 36-inch diameter, underground natural gas pipeline that would originate near the Pocono Mountains, extend across Eastern Pennsylvania and the Delaware River into Mercer County, New Jersey. The six companies that are part of the PennEast Pipeline project are awaiting final approval from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this fall.
If the project does move forward, as is widely expected, the natural gas pipeline will dramatically lower energy prices for consumers in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to studies PennEast has cited. Environmental activists who are opposed to the project claim the pipeline will result in both economic and environmental damage. Jeff Tittel, who serves as director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, has made this argument.
“PennEast will cut through quaint, bucolic towns that depend on ecotourism,” he said in a phone interview. “So the pipeline will actually hurt the economy. These are very old, historic areas. This is the area where Washington crossed the Delaware and one of the places where PennEast wants to put the pipeline is where Washington’s army camped on the New Jersey side before they crossed to the Pennsylvania side when he crossed back. There are pristine waterways and endangered species in the area. The pipeline will have to cross over 256 streams and the people don’t want it.”
But even as environmental activists invoke Washington’s name to drive public opinion, the proponents of natural gas development see those same environmentalists embracing an anti-revolutionary concept that would have prevented Washington’s Crossing from ever taking place. That concept, known as the “Precautionary Principle,” is the main driving force behind many of the environmental regulations in place today that work against the production and development of America’s abundant supplies of natural gas. There are varying definitions, but they all draw from the idea that scientific certitude should take a backseat to unsubstantiated theories that connect human activities with an unknown level of risk.
The 1998 Wingspread Statement, which is named for the conference center where environmental activists gathered in Wisconsin, says the precautionary principle should be put into effect “when an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established.”
Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the Washington-based National Center for Public Policy Research, said in an email that environmental activists who are opposed to PennEast are standing on the wrong side of history.
It has been said of the precautionary principle that its underlying principle is: There dare not be even a risk of a risk. Almost every human activity — from crossing the street today to crossing the Delaware on Christmas Day 1776 — entails some form of risk. We are told that building the Penn East pipeline will pose a risk to surrounding communities and the environment. But NOT building the pipeline will put both at a far greater risk. The pipeline will bring affordable and reliable energy to millions of people in the Delaware River Valley. There is nothing either affordable or reliable about the alternatives to the PennEast. In addition to defacing every environment in which they are placed, unsightly industrial wind facilities typically operate at 30 percent of their capacity and slaughter untold numbers of birds and bats. The risk that George Washington took by having his soldiers cross the half-frozen Delaware helped turn the tide in the Revolutionary War. Had Washington bowed to the precautionary principle, there might never have been an Independence Day. America is now in the midst of declaring its own energy independence from the Middle East, and the Penn East pipeline, by bringing American natural gas from the Marcellus Shale to the Northeast, is part of that story.
Washington’s surprise attack on the Hessian garrison in Trenton, the morning after his Christmas crossing, marked the beginning of the 10 Crucial Days culminating in the Battle of Princeton that revitalized the American cause. Thousands of local residents and out-of-town visitors celebrate this history each year when they gather along both sides of the Delaware River to witness re-enactment ceremonies of the crossing during the Christmas season. Last weekend was the first in a series of events that run through early January.
But it is worth noting that the same mindset rooted in the precautionary principle that is opposed to PennEast would have also prevented Washington’s audacious crossing of the Delaware.
Kevin Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C. who writes for several national publications.
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