The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) today approved its first natural gas pipeline since President Joe Biden took office, a decision that included a first-time agency analysis of whether the project's carbon emissions would have a significant effect on the climate.
The approval of the project, which would replace about 82 miles of aging pipeline between Nebraska and South Dakota, could ease industry concerns about the potential for a long-term freeze on permitting. FERC chairman Richard Glick in the past has harshly criticized the agency over its permitting policies, raising the possibility that no projects would be approved until the agency pursued major changes.
But FERC today voted 3-2 to allow Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary Northern Natural Gas pipeline to build the project, named the A-Line Replacement. The order includes a first-time "significance determination," with the agency finding the project's carbon emissions would not significantly harm the environment.
Glick said today's order reverses the agency's earlier "unlawful course" on previous pipeline approvals, by including that type of analysis.
"I have bene saying for some time now, analyzing the impact of a project's greenhouse gas emissions does not automatically doom the project," Glick said. "I believe many companies will actually welcome what the commission is doing today, because we are significantly reducing the legal risks."
FERC in past pipeline approvals said it lacked the tools to determine if a project's emissions were significant enough to require mitigation under the National Environmental Policy Act. The compromise reached today could provide a model for other pipelines to win approval, although the A-Line Replacement is far shorter than the long-haul gas pipelines that tend to generate the most controversy.
Republican commissioner Neil Chatterjee, who as a former chairman of the commission approved dozens of other gas pipelines that lacked equivalent climate analyses, voted for the order today. He said FERC's policies on the climate issue had "evolved" and would now be more legally durable.
"This is a big bipartisan step forward," he said. "Without compromise like this, needed infrastructure will not get built."
But the agency's two other Republican commissioners criticized the policy change, which they said should not have been made through a one-off approval to a single project. The change is separate from a "notice of inquiry" the agency started last month that is considering a wide-ranging overhaul to a FERC pipeline permitting policy approved in 1999.
FERC commissioner James Danly said the agency had made a "drastic departure" from past policy without giving other officials the opportunity to comment. But Glick, in response, said the complaint was the "height of hypocrisy" because Danly was FERC's top attorney when the agency decided to stop estimating greenhouse gas emissions from pipelines as part of the approval of a small pipeline.
