By Michael Brooks
WASHINGTON — FERC is collaborating with the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to process the 15 applications for LNG terminals before the commission, Chairman Kevin McIntyre announced Thursday.
“The new collaborative procedures, which will be implemented imminently, will significantly reduce the time required to review LNG project applications by taking full advantage of the expertise of our federal partners at PHMSA, the safety experts, to study potential impacts to public safety of each and every LNG terminal proposal,” McIntyre said at the commission’s monthly open meeting.
FERC and PHMSA staff are still working out the details and will issue a formal memorandum of understanding “as soon as possible,” he said.
McIntyre alluded to the announcement Tuesday on the commission’s podcast, “Open Access.”
“In just the last few days, we have made truly significant strides in reforming the permitting process with our federal partners,” he told commission spokeswoman Mary O’Driscoll.
McIntyre also denied that FERC had sent letters to several export terminal developers notifying them that their applications could be delayed by 12 to 18 months as it struggles to deal with its backlog, as reported by Bloomberg last week. Bloomberg had corrected the story to remove references to the letters, but it still says FERC “is preparing to notify” developers of the delays, citing anonymous sources. (RTO Insider noted Bloomberg’s report in an article about a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing at which the subject of delayed natural gas pipeline and LNG project approvals was discussed. See Senate Talks Gas Infrastructure amid Increasing Delays.)
The commission has in the past six months revised the notice schedules for three projects, McIntyre said, but it has not issued any new schedules in that time frame.
“FERC staff is very cognizant of the financial market impacts of its LNG project schedules,” he said. “Moreover, since we have been working diligently to streamline our permitting process and are still making significant strides in that direction, the release of any schedules to date would have been premature.”
