National Landowners Conference 2022

AMERICANS AGAINST EMINENT DOMAIN FOR PRIVATE GAIN

WATCH CONFERENCE RECORDING

EVENT SCHEDULE

Monday, Nov. 28

8:00 pm - 10:00 pm

"Welcome to NOLA"

Casual meet-up with snacks and drinks

HOTEL ROOM: VIEUX CARE

TUESDAY, NOV. 29

8:00 am - 8:50 am

Registration

Registration / Breakfast

HOTEL ROOM: RIVERVIEW
8:50 am - 9:00 am

opening remarks

Rebekah Sale, Director of Property Rights and Pipeline Center

9:00 am – 10:15 am

Session 1: Fighting Pipelines Panel

landowners guide

Jill Averitt, Irene Leech, Joyce Burton; Virginia Landowners

digital organizing

Dom Leon-Davis, Digital Climate Campaign

creating awareness

Justin J. Pearson, Yolonda Spinks; Memphis Community Against Pollution, TN

investor activism:

Freeda Cathcart

10:15 am – 10:45 am

Break

10:45 am – 11:30 am

Session 2: Pipeline Litigation/FERC and Pipelines

PL LITIGATION, PRESENT AND FUTURE

David Bookbinder; Niskanen Center

FeRC pipeline issues

Tom Owens and Kari Fulton, Center for Oil and Gas Organizing

11:30 am – 12:15 pm

Session 3: Landowner Easement Action Teams

Jane Kleeb, Bold Alliance and Brian Jorde, Domina Law

12:15pm – 1:15pm

LUNCH

HOTEL ROOM: RIVERVIEW
1:15pm – 1:30pm

funders perspective: Permitting reform

Larry Shapiro, Rockefeller Family Fund

1:30pm – 2:30pm

Session 4: Post pipeline land evaluation

The Effects of MVP on Property Values in Two Virginia Counties

Shannon E. Bell, Prof. Sociology, Virginia Tech* and Thomas PlaHovinsak, Asst. Professor of Economics, Longwood University*

*Virtual Appearance
2:30 pm – 3:30 pm

Session 5: eminent domain lawyering

Chris Johns, lawyer, Johns & Counsel, TX; Joe Sherman, lawyer, JVS Law Firm, VA

3:30 pm – 4:00 pm

break

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Session 6: pipeline strategy breakouts

gulf pipelines

Chrystal Beasley, TX; Cindy Robertson*, LA; Lori Simmons, LA; James Hiatt, LA; Jeffrey Jacoby, TX; Misha Mitchell*, LA; Patricia Zavala, TX

*Virtual Appearance
midwest pls

Jane Kleeb, Bold Alliance, NE; Justin J. Pearson, Yolonda Spinks, MCAP, TN; Lisa Midlam, MI

east coast pls

Gail Andrews, SC; Irene Leech, VA; Chad Oba, VA; CC, Maury Johnson, WVA; Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck, NC

5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

break

6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

reception and open bar

HOTEL ROOM: IBERVILLE BALLROOM
7:00 pm – 7:30 pm

KEYNOTE SPEECH: GENERAL RUSSEL HONORé

7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

DINNER BUFFET

HOTEL ROOM: IBERVILLE BALLROOM

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 30

8:30 am - 9:15 am

BREAKFAST BUFFET

HOTEL ROOM: RIVERVIEW
9:15 am – 10:30 am

Session 7: frontline leaders

Justin J. Pearson, TN; Sharon Lavigne, Joy Banner, LA; Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck, VA; Chrystal Beasley, TX, Cindy Parker-Robertson, LA, John Allaire*, LA.

*Virtual Appearance
10:30 am – 11:00 am

Session 8: pipeline coating and safety issues

Bill Caram, Pipeline Safety Trust; Maury Johnson, Protect Our Water Heritage Rights; Roberta Bondurant*, Protect Our Water Heritage Rights, VA

*Virtual Appearance
11:00 am – 11:15 am

break

11:15 am – 12:30 pm

Session 9: emerging pipeline threats: carbon and hydrogen panel

hydrogen

Abbe Ramanan, Clean Energy Group

ccs projects

Brian Jorde, Domina Law, Jade Woods, CIEL

national strategy

Dante Swinton, CIEL

12:30 pm – 2:30 pm

networking lunch

HOTEL ROOM: RIVERVIEW
2:30 pm – 4:30 pm

pipeline landowners stories on film and video

Curated by Jaime Henn, Fossil Free Media

end of conference

The Conference encourages every attendee to be vaccinated and boosted—and to wear a mask if they like. We will follow Hotel MonteLeone and city of New Orlean's COVID guidelines and will provide masks and hand sanitizers to all attendees. We will also have COVID tests available.

Conference Videos

Dirty Deal
(1:34min)

Speakers

Rebekah Sale
Founder / Director
Property Rights and Pipeline Center

Rebekah Sale is the founding Director of the Property Rights and Pipeline Center (PRPC) whose mission is to provide organizing, legal and policy expertise to the fight against the use of eminent domain for siting oil and gas pipelines. Prior to running PRPC, Rebekah led the Broadway Green Alliance which works on greening Broadway theater, led event recycling at the non-profit GrowNYC, and was Associate Campaigns Director at the New York Public Interest Research Group.  PRPC can be found at PipelineCenter.org.

Email:
rebekahsale@pipelinecenter.org
Justin J. Pearson
President & Founder, MCAP

Justin J. Pearson is a leader of Memphis Community Against Pollution and co-founder of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (MCAP) which is a Black-led environmental justice organization that successfully defeated a multi-billion dollar company's crude oil pipeline project. He is focused on social, racial, and economic justice as Special Assistant to the CEO of Year Up - a national program helping 18 - 24-year-olds gain training and entry-level jobs. Justin J. Pearson has an unwavering commitment to justice and dedicates his life to this endless pursuit.

Email:
justinjpearson1@gmail.com
Irene Leech

Irene E. Leech, Ph.D. teaches in Virginia Tech’s Consumer Studies Major and is an active consumer advocate, especially on energy issues.  Her family’s 100+ year old Angus seedstock farm, Mt. Rush in Buckingham, VA, has an easement granted by eminent domain to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline through the center of the working business. Every building is in the incineration zone, just 4 miles after the compressor station.  Her home in Montgomery County, Virginia is in the evacuation zone of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and about 4 miles before the anticipated compressor station.  Irene is involved in landowner advocacy, research, and education.

Email:
ileech@vt.edu
Jill Averitt

IJill Averitt was notified that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was proposed to go through their family homestead and a piece of commercial property they were actively developing in 2015. Soon thereafter she joined the Friends of Nelson as their Volunteer Coordinator. She immersed herself in the fight organizing events and meetings. After the ACP was canceled she wanted to share what she and others learned from their struggles and dedicated herself to the creation of the Landowners Rapid Response Guide which eventually became the backbone of the newly designed PRPC website. With the help of videographer Sarah Hazelgrove, she produced four short videos to accompany the guide. Jill is deeply committed to her family and community and continues to work on a local level for change.

Email:
jill@raveritt.com
Dom Leon-Davis
Executive Director | Digital Climate Coalition

Dom Leon-Davis is the Executive Director of the Digital Climate Coalition. He is an organizer whose work focuses on mobilizing and empowering those closest to the center of our most pressing issues, especially black, brown, and immigrant communities. Prior to joining the coalition, he served as senior staff for several national, state, and local campaigns, including Cory Booker’s presidential campaign, Reverend Warnock’s Senate race, and Stacey Abrams gubernatorial. He has also worked at several advocacy organizations including MoveOn where he ran a national voter mobilization campaign for the 2020 general election and Working Families Party where he ran communications for New York and served as part of the New York Renews coalition

Email:
dom@digitalclimatecoalition.org
Freeda Cathcart

As chief counsel, David Bookbinder brings a unique combination of private sector and public interest legal and policy experience to Niskanen.  In the public interest sphere, Bookbinder has litigated dozens of cases under all of the major environmental statutes including, as Sierra Club’s Chief Climate Counsel, initiating and managing Massachusetts v. EPA.  Bookbinder was trained at Princeton University (summa cum laude) and the University of Chicago Law School. He has designed and taught courses on “Environmental Litigation” at Georgetown University Law Center and “Environmental Law and Science” at the William and Mary Law School/Virginia Institute of Marine Science.  

Email:
contactfreeda@gmail.com
David Bookbinder
Lawyer

As chief counsel, David Bookbinder brings a unique combination of private sector and public interest legal and policy experience to Niskanen.  In the public interest sphere, Bookbinder has litigated dozens of cases under all of the major environmental statutes including, as Sierra Club’s Chief Climate Counsel, initiating and managing Massachusetts v. EPA.  Bookbinder was trained at Princeton University (summa cum laude) and the University of Chicago Law School. He has designed and taught courses on “Environmental Litigation” at Georgetown University Law Center and “Environmental Law and Science” at the William and Mary Law School/Virginia Institute of Marine Science.  

Email:
dbookbinder@niskanencenter.org
Jane Kleeb
Founder

Jane believes politics matter. She was a reporter for MTV, frequent guest on FOX and MSNBC and key advisor for “Thin” a documentary on eating disorders. Jane led a statewide organizing campaign on health care reform, served as the national executive director of the Young Democrats of America, the foundation director for Renfrew a mental health facility and headed up an AmeriCorps program. Jane has a "thing" for training manuals, flip charts and icebreakers. She lives in a small rural town, Hastings, with her husband Scott, an energy entrepreneur. On the weekends you can see plenty of instagram pics of cooking, shooting a bow and her three daughters running around outside.

Email:
jane@boldalliance.org
Brian E. Jorde
Founder

Jorde has won and settled multi-million dollar cases and has won law changing appeals relating to constitutional and other legal challenges for clients. Practicing in state and federal courts across the country Brian feels most at home in the courtroom.Often in the news and on television for protecting his clients rights and never afraid to take on the toughest cases. Work for the last many years has included representing landowners opposed to eminent domain for private gain and protecting their family interests related to the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.

Email:
BJorde@dominalaw.com
Larry Shapiro
Associate director for program development

Larry joined RFF in 2000. Prior to RFF, he directed the New York Public Interest Research Group’s (NYPIRG) environmental programs from 1988 through 1999. Among his successes in that capacity were campaigns to prevent construction of the Brooklyn Navy Yard incinerator; force the shut-down of Fresh Kills, the largest landfill in the world; and urge New York Governor George Pataki to order promulgation of what at the time were the toughest power plant emission standards in the country. Larry co-founded the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and serves as president of the board of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Email:
lshapiro@rffund.org
Chris Johns

Chris advocates for people and causes he believes in. He represents individuals and businesses as they confront powerful interests on the other side: property owners in disputes with the government, landowners in eminent-domain cases, and others with an important cause in a civil trial or appeal.Chris has won cases for clients in courts across the country—from state and federal trial and appellate courts to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches an upper-level course on property rights and eminent domain.

Email:
cjohns@johnsandcounsel.com
General Russel Honoré

General Russel Honoré is a decorated 37-year army veteran and a global authority on leadership, disaster management, and climate preparedness. At the request of the Speaker of the House, the General led Task Force 1-6 Capitol Security Review to improve Capitol security following the attacks on January 6, 2021. As the commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, he became known as the “Category 5 General” for his leadership in coordinating military relief efforts in post-hurricane New Orleans.General Honoré knows that the future of our national security depends on protecting our environment, and he’s fighting for a brighter future for us all. A Louisiana native, he founded the Green ARMY, a coalition of environmental experts and advocates, to protect against pollution while fighting climate change and the natural disasters it causes.

Email:
Sharon Lavigne
Founder

Lavigne, who is from St. James Parish, Louisiana which is at the center of the alley, has testified before Congress, and runs a faith-based organization, RISE St. James, focused on preventing expansion and worsening petrochemical plant pollution in the area.Lavigne is also a collaborator on the Coalition Against Death Alley, a regional environmental justice group. She is also a plaintiff in White Hat v. Landry, an environmental justice case, focused on changes in Louisiana Oil and Gas law. Lavigne is focused in part on defending the cultural heritage of the African American community. In 2019, she organized the community against a new Formosa Plastics Corp factory that would have disrupted a slave grave in the community.

Email:
sharonclavigne@gmail.com
Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck
Founder

Crystal Cavalier-Keck is the co-founder of Seven Directions of Service with her husband. She is a citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation in Burlington, NC. She is the Chair of the Environmental Justice Committee for the NAACP, a board member of the Haw River Assembly and the a member of the 2020 Fall Cohort of the Sierra Club's Gender Equity and Environment Program and Women's Earth Alliance (WEA) Accelerator for Grassroots Women Environmental Leaders.

Email:
criscavalier@gmail.com
Chrystal Beasley
Founder

Ms. Beasley is an environmental industry leader with over 13 years of environmental project management experience in both the private and public sectors. She has served in leadership roles from multimedia project management to developing engineering solutions with experience establishing environmental compliance by developing plans, procedures, and policies under the Clean Water Act (CWA), Clean Air Act (CAA), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), and OSHA to supplement training for operational personnel.

Email:
cbeasley@earthworksaction.org
Bill Caram
Founder

Bill has served as the Pipeline Safety Trust's Executive Director since 2020 and serves with a passion for fierce independence, public safety advocacy, and environmental protections.Bill previously served the Deschutes River Conservancy in Bend, Oregon – a collaborative, multi-stakeholder non-profit organization founded by the Environmental Defense Fund, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, and local irrigation districts to restore streamflow and improve water quality in the Deschutes River Basin.

Email:
Roberta (Burt) Bondurant
Founder

Lavigne, who is from St. James Parish, Louisiana which is at the center of the alley, has testified before Congress, and runs a faith-based organization, RISE St. James, focused on preventing expansion and worsening petrochemical plant pollution in the area.Lavigne is also a collaborator on the Coalition Against Death Alley, a regional environmental justice group. She is also a plaintiff in White Hat v. Landry, an environmental justice case, focused on changes in Louisiana Oil and Gas law. Lavigne is focused in part on defending the cultural heritage of the African American community. In 2019, she organized the community against a new Formosa Plastics Corp factory that would have disrupted a slave grave in the community.

Email:
Abbe Ramanan
Project Director

Abbe Ramanan is a Project Director at Clean Energy Group and Clean Energy States Alliance. At CEG, Abbe leads the Hydrogen Information and Public Education project, which aims to equip advocates, regulators, and policymakers with non-biased facts to counter irresponsible hydrogen proposals. Abbe also supports the development of equitable solar and battery storage projects in underserved communities through the Resilient Power Project, which strives to provide resilient power technologies to the communities that need it most. In her role at CESA, Abbe specializes in equitable low-income solar policy.

Email:
abbe@cleanegroup.org
Jade Woods
Louisiana CC Campaigner

Jade Woods (she/her) is the Louisiana Anti-CCS Campaigner, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She serves as a point person for CIEL’s goal to prevent carbon capture and storage (CCS) buildout in the Gulf South region. Her work includes coordinating regional and national strategies to resist CCS development, supplying frontline partners with the resources and support required to further their work, and supporting the creation of safe and just clean energy alternatives. She is thrilled to return to her home state of Louisiana to work on such pressing climate justice issues.

Email:
jwoods@ciel.org
Dante Swinton
Senior Campaigner/ National Organizer: CSS/Hydrogen

Dante Swinton (he/they) is a Senior Campaigner in CIEL’s Climate and Energy team, based out of the DC office. Their work focuses primarily on researching developments around the proposed CCS and hydrogen buildout, engaging state and regional organizations to gather an understanding of what’s happening on the ground, and working with these organizations on ways to push back against climate scams.

Email:
dswinton@ciel.org
Bekeyah Nelson
Global Initiative Director

Bakeyah S. Nelson, Ph.D. is Global Initiative Director of Climate Imperative. Dr. Nelson has a diverse background in public health and public policy and has worked to reduce health inequities in Houston communities for 15 years. She previously served as the Executive Director of Air Alliance Houston, a research-based nonprofit organization working to reduce the public health impacts of air pollution and advance environmental justice in the Houston Region. Dr. Nelson is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, and was named the 2020 Texas Energy Summit’s Clean Air Champion of the Year in 2020.

Email:
Jamie Henn
Founder

I’m a climate activist, strategist, and communicator.I’m the director of Fossil Free Media, a nonprofit communications lab that supports the movement to end fossil fuels. We provide direct communications support to grassroots organizations, produce videos & other multimedia, run digital campaigns, fund investigative journalism, and lead our own, hard-hitting campaigns, like Clean Creatives, an effort to get PR and Advertising agencies to stop working with the fossil fuel industry.

Email:
jamie@fossilfree.media
Tom Owens
Founder

Tom Owens is the executive director of the newly created Center for Oil and Gas Organizing. He has worked on environmental issues for the past 15 years spanning philanthropy, policy advocacy, strategic communications and community organizing. Mr. Owens joins COGO from the High Tide Foundation, based in Greenbrae, CA, where he led programmatic work focused on oil and gas emissions.

Email:
owensthom@gmail.com
Yolonda Spinks
Author and Digital Strategist

Yolonda Spinks is an author and digital strategist that specializes in social media strategy and implementation. With a charming smile and deep-rooted Southern drawl to match, she pairs her customer service, public relations, and marketing experience with her keen eye for detail and consumer trends to create successful social strategies that yield results for her clients.

Email:
ysspinks@gmail.com
Shannon Bell, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology, Virginia Tech

Shannon Bell, Ph.D. is a Professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech. Her research is broadly focused on environmental and climate justice, with a particular interest in rural communities. She is author of two award-winning books: Fighting King Coal: The Challenges to Micromobilization in Central Appalachia (MIT Press), and Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed: Appalachian Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice (University of Illinois Press).

Email:
Tom PlaHovinsak, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Economics at Longwood University

Tom PlaHovinsak, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Longwood University. His areas of specialization include urban economics, housing policy, inequality in policy design, labor economics, and econometrics. His research has been published in a variety of academic journals, including Journal of Real Estate Research, Housing Policy Debate, and Journal of Real Estate Literature.

Email:
Joyce Burton
Founder

Ever since the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project was announced in 2014, Joyce Burton has contributed her energy to various local and regional anti-pipeline groups including serving on the Board of Friends of Nelson and working as its official Landowner Liaison.  In 2018 she retired from her job as a home health PT in order to devote more time to local advocacy and landowner support.  Since the ACP’s cancellation in 2020, her efforts have been focused primarily on getting ACP landowners released from their easements.

Email:
joybirdpt@gmail.com
Kari Fulton
Founder

Kari Fulton is an award-winning Environmental and Climate Justice advocate, educator, and policy analyst. She has organized with various domestic and global coalitions to develop initiatives that empower and amplify the voices of communities on the frontlines of climate and environmental injustice. Fulton's work has been featured in various media including Black Entertainment Television (BET), Democracy Now, The Washington Post, and Chinese Global Television Network (CGTN).  She serves as the Organizing Director for the Center for Oil and Gas Organizing and is an adjunct lecturer in Howard University’s Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies program.

Email:
karifulton85@gmail.com

“I don't want my life to be defined by what is etched on a tombstone. I want it to be defined by what is etched in the lives and hearts of those I've touched.”

—Steve Maraboli

Speakers

Ariana Akbari
Email:
arianaakbariart@gmail.com
Kathy Gail Andrews
Email:
kandrews@bredl.org
Joy Banner
Email:
joy@thedescendantsproject.org
Paul Blackburn
Email:
paul@boldalliance.org
Susan Doppler
Email:
dopplerst@gmail.com
James Hiatt
Email:
james@labucketbrigade.org
Jeffrey Jacoby
Email:
jeffrey@texasenvironment.org
Maury Johnson
Email:
maurywjohnson@yahoo.com
Chuck Lesniak
Email:
CL3consulting@gmail.com
Chris Meyer
Email:
chris@fundercollab.org
Lisa Midlam
Email:
glowfrog@protonmail.com
Gerald Neuberger
Email:
Eloise Reid
Email:
eloisereid@gmail.com
Maria Reyes
Email:
mreyes@commissionshift.org
Pam Schonert
Email:
pmscho@hotmail.com
Lori Simmons
Email:
LSimmons@pipelinecenter.org
Joanie Steinhaus
Email:
joanie@tirn.net
Patricia Zavala
Email:
patricia@pipelinecenter.org

Thank you!