The D.C. Circuit Confirms: FERC Shouldn’t Just Ignore Downstream Emissions in its NEPA Documents

Jamison Colburn climate change, FERC, fracking, pipelines , , , ,

The big word from the D.C. Circuit just out yesterday in Sierra Club v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 2017 WL 3597014 (D.C. Cir. 2017), is this: “downstream” emissions in pipeline approvals—the emissions that will or may occur as a result of the pipeline’s operation—cannot just be categorically excluded from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) NEPA […]

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Williams & Co. Stumble in Pipeline Project: Did NYS Just Create a Playbook?

Jamison Colburn Army Corps of Engineers, CWA Section 401, FERC, fracking, pipelines , , ,

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) is the authorized agency implementing New York’s Clean Water Act water quality standards. The extraordinary thing about these standards is that federal projects that might violate those standards cannot just be waived through by a federal agency in control. Only the authorized state can do that […]

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Bias v. NEPA: What if Informational Tools are Futile?

Jamison Colburn climate change, FERC, pipelines , , ,

As we’ve written up at the Lab before, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) plays an absolutely vital role in permitting and governing the nation’s energy infrastructure.  And that vests it with a leading role in the nation’s fossil fuel future.  This has not been lost on the environmental groups that keep challenging FERC’s decisions […]

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The (In)significance of Greenhouse Gases in NEPA

Jamison Colburn action agencies, FERC, fracking, pipelines , , , ,

In an opinion released late last month, the D.C. Circuit rejected several NEPA challenges brought against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s permissions at Dominion Cove Point.  The climate change claims were the most important and FERC may well count Earthreports, Inc. v. Federal Energy Reg. Comm’n 2016 WL 3853830 (D.C. Cir. 2016) among its most […]

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Dominion Cove Point @ the D.C. Circuit: Wherever Causation Leads . . .

Jamison Colburn action agencies, FERC, pipelines , , ,

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) licenses the pipeline transport of natural gas pursuant to the Natural Gas Act and other authorities.  Dominion Energy, Cabot Oil & Gas and others petitioned FERC for permission to convert the major liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Lusby, Maryland, from an import-oriented facility to an export-driven one.  America’s […]

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FERC, Programmatic Analysis and the Shale Gas Boom Going Bust

Jamison Colburn action agencies, fracking, pipelines, segmentation, uncategorized , , ,

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the successor-agency to one of the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA) principal catalysts, the now-defunct Federal Power Commission (FPC).  The FPC was renowned for its ham-handed exclusion of environmentalists and other intervenors as it was licensing dams and other hydro projects in the 1960s.  So recalcitrant and cozy […]

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Exporting LNG: When Counting Becomes a Battle of the Experts

Jamison Colburn action agencies, additionality, climate change, fracking, pipelines , , , , ,

When does a natural gas export terminal facilitate more gas development and combustion than current practices or business-as-usual projections expect?  Answer: every time one’s actually built and brought online.  But in the race to build out the capacity market watchers believe can be supported, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is becoming a smaller and smaller […]

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Segmentation: A Conduit to Conflict

Jamison Colburn blog, uncategorized , , , ,

The pipeline boom has many in the environmental community on alert against a perennial bugbear NEPA veterans know well.  In any infrastructural “system” built and maintained piecemeal, doubts and questions will arise over the measurable or practical units under “consideration” or construction at any one time.  If NEPA’s ideal is to analyze and weigh the […]

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