The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has updated its internal guidance on environmental reviews of natural gas pipelines and LNG terminals to scrap references to standards struck down by President Donald Trump's administration.
FERC's decision is the latest action by a federal agency to streamline reviews of projects under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the first major federal environmental law dating to 1970. The new guidance will remove references to the now-defunct implementing regulations for environmental reviews previously issued by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, FERC said.
"We will continue to ensure our environmental reviews are legally durable so projects stand up in court and get built," FERC chairman Mark Christie said.
Environmental reviews prepared under NEPA were often hundreds of pages for large projects and can take years to draft, after which they are often litigated. Federal agencies used to prepare reviews based on guidance by the Council on Environmental Quality. But federal courts in the past year said the council had no authority to issue binding regulations on how to conduct environmental reviews, and the Trump White House rescinded those regulations in April.
FERC earlier this month waived a previous order that called for a short-term construction delay on pipeline construction. FERC also allowed some smaller pipeline projects to be approved without being subject to a full review.
