Commissioner Willie Phillips Statement
January 20, 2022
Docket Nos. CP16-9-011, CP16-9-012
I am honored and humbled to have joined the Commission at such a critical moment for environmental justice communities. I am now, and will always be, guided by the record, the law, and my conscience. My role is to demand fairness and accountability from industry and seek to protect communities from degradation.
With all proceedings before this Commission, parties are entitled to a fair application of our rules from commencement to termination. Residents living near the Atlantic Bridge Project’s Weymouth compressor station are burdened by multiple industrial facilities. Sadly, this pattern of consolidating industrial building in such communities is neither isolated nor unique. There is a time and place for considering the siting concerns raised by Weymouth residents. As explained in the order, we are not relitigating the certificate order. Moreover, because there is not sufficient evidence to act in response to the two blowdown events, we need not reach difficult questions on the full extent of our legal authority. While I may not have elected to proceed as a prior Commission did when certificating the Atlantic Bridge Project with the compressor station in Weymouth, at this stage of the proceeding the clear decision—and the only one supported by the record—is to terminate the proceeding.
For these reasons, I respectfully concur.