Originally published for customers April 26, 2023
What’s the issue?
The FERC’s April open meeting took place on April 20, 2023.
Why does it matter?
The Commission acted on a number of key gas items pertinent to project development, but tensions seem to be growing among the Commissioners.
What’s our view?
Driftwood Pipeline received its certificate order, but there are a number of projects that have been pending before the Commission for over a year. With Commissioner Clements now dissenting on a number of issues, further delays could be in store for project developers.
FERC had its April open meeting on Thursday, and the following actions were taken with respect to natural gas projects:
- Approved and amended the certificate of Rio Bravo’s Rio Grande LNG Project and associated amendment project filing.
- Revised the environmental analysis of the Texas LNG project to include the social cost of carbon and associated environmental justice impacts.
- Reaffirmed the reissuance of the certificate for Spire STL Pipeline.
- Issued the certificate for Tellurian’s Driftwood Pipeline Line 200 and 300 Project.
The April Commission meeting seemed to hint at the first sign of trouble under Acting Chairman Phillips’s rule. The meeting started almost four hours late, and Commissioner Clements had a number of scathing dissents.
The Meeting
Arbo attended the April meeting to help interpret and relay the pressing agenda items to our customers.
Ahead of every FERC open meeting, once each Sunshine Notice is published, Arbo analyzes and summarizes each docket pending before the Commission to help customers anticipate what will be decided in the coming week.
There were 18 electric items, two hydro items, and four key certificate proceeding items, three of which were LNG terminal or LNG pipeline affiliated.
Pending Projects
After this month’s meeting, there are still a number of long-tail pending pipeline projects, with five projects pending for more than one year. The graph below shows all the major pipeline projects pending before the Commission, and how many days since their application was filed. Not on this list is Driftwood Pipeline, which received its certificate during Thursday’s meeting. Driftwood’s application was pending 748 days before the Commission. With GTN XPress’s application pending 569 days at the time of this article being published, it is yet to be seen if the Commission will decide to act in the coming months on any of the gas certificate projects pending before it.
Commissioner Clements Dissents
Commissioner Clements dissented on three of the natural gas certificate proceeding items acted upon. She had a full dissent from items C-1 and C-2, the Rio Grande, Rio Bravo, and Texas LNG orders, and a partial dissent from item C-4, Driftwood Pipeline.
Clements notes in her dissent that the DC Circuit remanded the first two orders in August of 2021 on the basis of deficient analysis of greenhouse gas impacts and impacts on environmental justice communities. She also notes that these orders invite further litigation and potential further delays for the project applicants who want to proceed forward to completion, as well as negatively impact the affected communities.
Clements said “By failing to issue a supplemental EIS and instead tucking this revised safety and environmental analyses into the body and appendices of today's order, the Commission has created an incomplete and inadequate record and lacks a basis for reasoned decision-making. I disagree; I believe that these orders are deficient under the Natural Gas Act, under NEPA, and under the APA, and that fact alone invites further delay. More generally, this procedural corner-cutting represents a gobsmacking departure, frankly, from the lessons I took away from the environmental justice roundtable we held just a month ago. Today’s order provides a hit parade of previously expressed concerns about the social cost of carbon protocol, but nowhere engages with counter perspectives in the open docket or explains why it need not do so. This doesn't further the goals of regulatory certainty, and it certainly doesn't engage with and value the comments that we asked for in the docket related to our significance findings.”
Commissioner Clements’s dissent in Driftwood was solely focused on the Social Cost of Carbon and how FERC may be moving away from the GHG Policy statement, which may be a good thing, but not according to her. She goes on to say in her dissent that this could be interpreted as the Commission’s definitive conclusion that the Social Cost of Carbon is unsuitable in determining the significance of GHG emissions for natural gas infrastructure projects, and that there is no scientifically acceptable method to determine this. She appears to be posturing for a proceeding, roundtable, or full policy statement on GHG emissions.