The Delaware Riverkeeper Network asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reverse a decision in an individual natural gas pipeline case that the group said would cause widespread harm by limiting the commission's analysis of upstream and downstream impacts of such infrastructure.
In a May 26 letter, the environmental group asked FERC to rescind a May 18 order that denied a challenge to the commission's approval of Dominion Energy Inc.'s New Market project and that included a policy shift criticized by the commission's two Democratic members. In the order, the FERC majority said the commission will limit its reviews of potential environmental effects of gas pipeline projects, such as greenhouse gas emissions, to impacts that can be linked directly to the projects, "when those effects are sufficiently causally connected to and are reasonably foreseeable effects of the proposed action."
Delaware Riverkeeper said by issuing the change in policy as part of a single project docket, FERC deprived many interested parties of their chance to contest the decision. The decision can only be challenged by official intervenors in that project review. The commission took from parties outside the case "their rights to fair and timely due process," the group said.
The group also said the FERC position has consequences for the commission's current review of its almost 20-year-old pipeline permitting policy statement. FERC kicked off the review in April. (FERC docket PL18-1)
"The fact that FERC was unwilling to allow its climate changing decision to be undertaken in the context of that review demonstrates [that FERC] is simply interested in a process it can use to excuse its ongoing rubber stamp approval of pipeline infrastructure," Delaware Riverkeeper leader Maya van Rossum said in the letter.
In the May 18 order, FERC denied a rehearing request from Otsego 2000, a New York environmental and historic conservation group, that had targeted the commission's 2016 approval of the New Market expansion project. The roughly $159 million compression-based expansion, which provided 112,000 Dth/d of additional firm gas transportation capacity to customers in New York, was granted authorization to start service in October 2017. (FERC docket CP14-497)
Asked about the Delaware Riverkeeper letter, Dominion focused on the fact that New Market is in service. "The project has been meeting the growing demand for natural gas for [National Grid PLC] customers in upstate and downstate New York, and to address a need for incremental pipeline capacity," Dominion spokesman Frank Mack said.
Former Commissioner Tony Clark has said the policy spelled out by the FERC majority is not new, but a return to the commission's traditional approach to environmental reviews.
