FERC on Jan. 24 issued an order terminating its proceeding on the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions in natural gas infrastructure project reviews (PL21-3).
“Having thoroughly reviewed that record, we are now withdrawing the draft GHG policy statement and closing that proceeding,” FERC said. “We find, based on the record that has been developed, that the issues addressed in that proceeding are, in general, better considered on a case-by-case basis, when raised by parties to those proceedings, as the commission has done following the issuance of the draft.”
The proposed policy statement dates back to former Chair Richard Glick’s tenure, and opposition to it from former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) helped sink his re-nomination. FERC did not move forward on the draft for the rest of President Joe Biden’s term, during which Commissioner Willie Phillips served as chair. (See Glick’s FERC Tenure in Peril as Manchin Balks at Renomination Hearing.)
FERC had issued the policy statement in February 2022, explaining it would presume projects with estimated GHG emissions of at least 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year will have a significant impact on climate change — requiring that the commission conduct an environmental impact statement — unless the developer can rebut that presumption with evidence. The policy was strongly opposed by Republican Commissioners James Danly and Mark Christie (the latter of whom became chair Jan. 20).
But a month later, FERC walked back the policy, labeling the statement as a draft and inviting comments on it, on top of the tens of thousands of comments it already received when it issued its Notice of Inquiry the year before. (See FERC Backtracks on Gas Policy Updates.) The commission simultaneously did the same thing with a separate statement that updated its 1999 policy on granting gas pipelines certificates of public convenience and necessity. That docket began with an NOI issued in 2018 and was only mentioned in last week’s brief order (PL18-1).
All three Democratic commissioners — Phillips, David Rosner and Judy Chang — wrote a joint concurrence, saying that since they have been on FERC, they have followed the law when evaluating applications for natural gas infrastructure.
“The consideration of greenhouse gas emissions in our review of natural gas infrastructure projects has been one of the most challenging issues before the commission for several years,” they said. “The extent to which the commission must account for the project’s GHG emissions and in turn the impacts on global climate change has been debated and litigated at length before the commission and the courts.”
The courts have continued to hand down rulings on cases that implicate FERC’s environmental reviews of gas infrastructure, including remanding cases in which they find its analysis lacking, the Democrats said.
While the policy statement is being dropped, the three commissioners said it has provided information that has proven useful for FERC as it developed its current, bipartisan case-by-case approaching to reviewing the climate impacts of natural gas infrastructure.
FERC’s approach to GHGs has evolved, and in complying with the National Environmental Policy Act, it estimates reasonably foreseeable emissions attributable to a proposed project; provides a qualitative discussion on potential adverse impacts from those emissions; compares them to state or national levels; and calculates monetized values, the commissioners said. FERC also expects developers to evaluate technically and economically feasible strategies to cut emissions during construction and operation.
“All of our colleagues have joined us on orders using this approach to comply with our NGA and NEPA obligations,” the Democrats said. “Critically, the courts have upheld it. If this approach is continued, it will provide more certainty for all parties and stakeholders, fulfill the commission’s obligations to consider environmental impacts in its decisions and inform the public regarding the basis for those decisions.”
