[Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story used an image incorrectly labeled as the Weymouth Compressor Station.]

FERC on Wednesday rejected requests for rehearing of its decision to examine safety concerns about the operation of a natural gas compressor station in Weymouth, Mass., saying its investigation did not “aggrieve” the facility’s developer (CP16-9-014).

The majority’s reasoning was disputed by commissioners James Danly and Mark Christie, who argued that the commission’s action meant it had illegally reopened its approval in 2017 of Enbridge’s Atlantic Bridge Project — a $452 million expansion of the company’s Algonquin Gas Transmission and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline systems — of which the compressor station’s construction was a part. (See Atlantic Bridge Project Approved by FERC.)

The commission opened its examination in February after receiving numerous rehearing requests from nearby residents over staff’s authorization of the expansion project to go into service in September 2020 (CP16-9-012). It asked for input on the following questions:

• Is it consistent with FERC’s responsibilities under the Natural Gas Act to allow the station to enter and remain in service?
• Should changes in the station’s projected air emissions impacts or public safety impacts cause the commission to re-examine the project?
• How might these changes affect the surrounding communities, including environmental justice communities?
• Should FERC impose any additional mitigation measures in response to concerns that have been raised?
• What would the consequences be if FERC were to stay or reverse the September 2020 authorization order?

Since staff’s authorization, the station has been shut down three times — including the day after FERC’s latest order was issued. An Enbridge spokesperson told WBUR that the company is “performing maintenance work … on a piece of equipment [that] helps reduce compressor unit emissions.” The company did not say whether the work was planned in advance.

That same day, during FERC’s open meeting, Chairman Richard Glick also cited several blowdowns — in which the station vents gas to relieve pressure and lower temperature — as a reason “to gather more information.” The comment period for the commission’s briefing request has ended, and it is in the process of reviewing stakeholders’ answers, Glick said in remarks opening the meeting.

In its order denying rehearing, FERC stressed that it was not reopening Atlantic Bridge’s approval, which Glick repeated on Thursday.

“Some have suggested that the February briefing order somehow opens up the certificate for the Atlantic Bridge project, which includes the Weymouth compressor station,” he said, alluding to the minority’s dissents and gas developers’ protests. “That is simply false. I will say this again: The commission has no authority to reconsider an order granting a certificate after the order is issued and rehearing of the order is denied, at least absent a remand from the courts.”

He also noted that even after granting a project a certificate of public convenience and necessity, FERC must still authorize its construction and operation in two subsequent orders — the latter of which is still pending for Atlantic Bridge — and “that while the commission asked for additional briefing, we specifically said the compressor station could keep operating.”

“If we were presented with information after a project receives a certificate, but before it is placed in service, that the project is located on top of an active fault line, should we just ignore that fact and just tell the project developer to place the project in service, no questions asked? Of course not.”

But Glick was especially critical of Danly, whom he compared to Paul Revere, “except that in this case the British are not actually coming.”

“While I appreciate that project developers would prefer to answer as few questions as possible, we have certain obligations to affected local communities and the health and safety of their citizens,” Glick said. “And even if, as Commissioner Danly’s dissent suggests, a number of pipeline companies are concerned about our February briefing order, that pales in comparison to the anxiety experienced by people that live near the Weymouth compressor station. … At the very least, common decency suggests that our decision to seek additional briefing was the right one.”

Danly took umbrage with Glick’s remarks.

“In what I think were terms that made legally irrelevant appeals to sympathy in a manner of indignant virtue, the chairman just offered a description of this order that does not bear scrutiny,” he responded. “We do not have the power, as the briefing order suggests, to insist upon ‘additional mitigation measures,’ except by one means only,” a condition attached to its certificate order. “If we are asking for briefing for a contemplated action that I would argue is ultra vires” — that is, outside of FERC’s legal authority — “then you are putting people to a burden.”

Danly said that Glick, “I have to say, somewhat snidely suggests that this is like authorizing the construction of a pipeline on a fault line and that I’m … somehow being silly by suggesting that it’s a burden for lawyers to draft briefings. I would argue that us requesting a briefing on what things we can do that are not contemplated by the [NGA] is more akin to a district court judge, after a criminal trial is over and the defendant is found not guilty, three years later requesting further briefing on the suppression motion you won. That is a burden. …

“Now, it may be that the commission has attempted to retrench from that position, and today’s orders are going to have a bunch of conspicuous footnotes reassuring the public” that it is not reopening its pipeline approvals, Danly said. “I would argue that ‘the lady doth protest too much’ in those cases.”

Danly also disputed Glick’s “Paul Revere” jab. He noted the many comments in response to the briefing order that made his point, including a letter from several former FERC commissioners — including Pat Wood III, Elizabeth Moler, Suedeen Kelly and Joseph T. Kelliher — that expressed concern that the order “threatens to impede the development of all infrastructure projects subject to the commission’s jurisdiction.”

“We are concerned that the Feb. 18 order deviates from the commission’s traditional respect for the finality of existing authorizations,” reads the letter, which Danly attached to his dissent. “We are troubled by the novel assertion of authority to reconsider a long-since-final certificate order, without any suggestion that the terms of that order were violated, and long after a private company built and placed into service the facilities in question, at a cost of approximately a half-billion dollars. We are unaware of any other instance in the eight-decade history of the Natural Gas Act, where the commission has taken such a step. Certainly we cannot recall any such cases during our tenures on the commission, which collectively span 20 years.”

Commissioner Christie was also irked by Glick’s remarks. “I got here a couple months ago, and I didn’t realize — I guess I was naive — I thought we were going to talk about issues that were on the agenda and not cases that were resolved before we got to the agenda. But if you want to have debates on cases that have already been resolved, then just please let us know, and we’ll come prepared for that.”

The commissioners’ opening statements were only the beginning of what turned out to be an abnormally tense meeting. Later, during a separate debate over two other pipeline project certificate orders, Christie also admonished Glick for his remark about “common decency,” apparently taking it as a criticism of Danly.

“There are two dissents that acknowledge that these [projects] are needed … but are dissenting because they say the order does not go far enough on the [greenhouse gas] issue,” Christie said. (See related story, FERC Approves Pipeline Orders After Impromptu Amendment Vote.) “And I respect those positions. Unlike you, Mr. Chairman … I’m not going to accuse anybody else on this commission of lacking basic human decency.”