Members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) met with a U.S. Senate committee recently to review updates the agency has made to its guidance policies on natural gas projects, FERC announced this month.
FERC Chair Richard Glick and other commissioners met March 3 with the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (CENR), FERC announced at the time. Discussions focused on how the policy updates will improve FERC's process for reviewing and approving applications for new interstate natural-gas pipelines and liquified natural-gas facilities. Additionally, updates will improve the "legal durability" of FERC's decisions, after federal and appeals courts remanded or vacated FERC approvals in recent years, according to the announcement.
"The message from these courts is clear: Agencies must not cut corners," Glick said at the meeting. "When they do, they put infrastructure projects at risk, including natural gas pipelines that may be needed to deliver fuel for home heating or electric generation and LNG facilities that could, potentially, help to reduce our allies’ energy dependence on Russian gas.'
Chairperson Glick testified he "expressed concern" FERC hadn't properly considered all issues surrounding a pipeline project, the statement reports, such as environmental impacts and public interest versus the need for the project. "In other words, whether the benefits of the project—especially increasing access to natural gas—outweigh its adverse impacts," Glick testified.
Glick told Senators that since the original certificate-policy statement was issued in 1999, improvements in technology dramatically increased "fracking" for natural gas for domestic energy and exports. Developers wanted to build LNG facilities and pipelines through populated areas without the necessary infrastructure, Glick said to the CENR.
Glick testified that during this time, the commission's policies changed "often without acknowledgement." He said the 1999' policy's requirement that FERC "consider all relevant factors reflecting on the need for the project," became "a position in which the precedent agreements filed by a project developer were treated as conclusive proof of the need for a proposed project."
The updated policy statements reinforce the FERC commission will consider "all relevant factors" when reviewing applications or new natural gas projects, including economic, environmental and public-convenience issues, the commissioners testified. Commissioners James P. Danly, Allison Clements, Mark C. Christie and Willie L. Phillips also spoke at the meeting, FERC reports.
“As members of the Commission, we are called upon to make important, often complex decisions that can have significant ramifications on the security, reliability, and affordability of the nation’s energy resources,” Glick said at the meeting. “Every single vote I take is based on my best assessment of the facts and the law—nothing more and nothing less.”
