While Democrats are expected to pick up House seats in the U.S. midterm elections, the environmental community would like to see their courage increase with their numbers, said the head of a group that is active in opposing new natural gas pipelines.

Democratic senators and representatives tend to support the goals of conservation groups on the broad issue of climate change and the localized environmental issues that often appear in the review of natural gas pipeline projects and other energy infrastructure. They have been weak, said Maya van Rossum, the head of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, but if emboldened, they could hold up a Republican nominee for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, oppose Republican legislation designed to reduce the role of states in issuing permits for pipelines and generally support clean energy over fossil fuels.

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But environmentalists are wary. They have found that some politicians do not stand firm even when many of their constituents are against fossil fuels, van Rossum said in an interview. "They will say the right thing, but when they have an opportunity to do something meaningful, they don't actually do it," she said.

The midterm elections on Nov. 6 are widely believed to keep the Republican Party in power in the Senate but give control of the House to the Democratic Party. The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, a pipeline trade group, has said it expects the outcomes to have little effect on its interests, including the confirmation of the latest FERC nominee, U.S. Department of Energy official Bernard McNamee.

Environmental groups, often with the Sierra Club or Delaware Riverkeeper leading the charge, have challenged FERC pipeline authorizations and permits from other federal agencies in court over greenhouse gas emissions, water quality impacts and other environmental issues. Most of these groups have opposed the nomination of McNamee to the commission.

The environmental groups have backed the FERC Democrats' calls for more study in each pipeline review of whether a project is in the public interest. The Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council have both argued that an agreement between a pipeline company and an affiliated local distribution company shipper should not act as proof of need. The Sierra Club did not respond to questions for this article. The Natural Resources Defense Council did not want to speculate before the midterms.

FERC's power balance

In August, after the departure of Commissioner Robert Powelson left FERC Republicans evenly matched 2-2 with their Democratic colleagues, a coalition of environmental groups, including Delaware Riverkeeper and the Sierra Club, asked senators to keep the spot vacant until "Congress has held investigations into FERC's abuses of power and initiated needed reforms." The pipeline industry, on the other hand, wants the Senate to quickly fill the seat.

The fifth chair will be a tiebreaker for the party in power, with issues in the balance including the fate of a review of the agency's 1999 policy on pipeline project applications and decisions on applications for Natural Gas Act certificates to build pipeline projects. Democratic Commissioners Richard Glick and Cheryl LaFleur have pushed FERC to go further in its analysis of whether projects are needed by the public and its analysis of environmental impacts, including contributions to climate change. Republican Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Commissioner Kevin McIntyre, who recently exchanged places because of McIntyre's health troubles, have supported the commission's traditional tests.

Van Rossum said the McNamee confirmation process gives Democrats and like-minded Republicans another chance to stop FERC from approving so many pipeline applications. In August 2017, the Senate restored the voting quorum at FERC with the confirmations of Chatterjee and Powelson, allowing the commission to move forward with pipelines after a period of time with not enough commissioners. This time, if McNamee is kept out, the stalemate at FERC will prevent some pipeline approvals, van Rossum said.

"There is real power in opposing McNamee," she said.

Beyond votes

Even with the Democrats' poor chances in the Senate, van Rossum said she hopes they would still have a shot at stopping the nominee. They could use the Senate's "blue slip" mechanism, which allows substantial input from the minority party on federal nominees, to bring opposition that "has more staying power than just asking hard questions and saying I don't like you," she said.

For that to happen, Democrats would have to "put their actions where their mouth is," she said.

What happens in the House matters, too, van Rossum said. House Republicans have introduced bills that would reduce input to the FERC process from federal agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; strip Clean Water Act Section 401 authority from states; and reduce public participation in the infrastructure review process.

Democratic control of the House could keep these from becoming law, she said, if those lawmakers and candidates who have expressed concern come through. "Last year, nobody did anything," van Rossum said.