- Climate Litigation Database
- /
- Search
- /
- Catskill Mountainkeeper, Inc. v. Federal Energy Re...
Collection
Catskill Mountainkeeper, Inc. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
In re Constitution Pipeline Co., LLC ↗
CP13-499, CP13-502FERC7 entries
Filing Date
Type
Action Taken
Document
Summary
Catskill Mountainkeeper, Inc. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ↗
16-3452d Cir.11 entries
Filing Date
Type
Action Taken
Document
Summary
11/18/2021
Decision
Motion to dismiss granted.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) motion to dismiss as moot petitions for review challenging the now-defunct Constitution Pipeline, which would have carried natural gas between Pennsylvania and New York. The developer canceled the project in 2020, and FERC’s authorization for the pipeline lapsed in December 2020. The lawsuits that the Second Circuit found to be moot challenged FERC’s certificate of public convenience and necessity for the project and also FERC’s later determination that New York waived its water quality certification authority under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act.
09/23/2016
Brief
Reply brief filed by petitioners.
In their reply brief, four environmental groups argued that FERC should have considered the impacts of increased gas production because the pipeline would be the “legally relevant cause” of such upstream impacts and impacts were reasonably foreseeable. The groups also reiterated their arguments that FERC’s evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions did not comply with NEPA.
09/12/2016
Brief
FERC brief filed.
FERC and proponents of the Constitution Pipeline Project filed briefs defending FERC’s environmental review of the project, which includes a 124-mile natural gas pipeline between Pennsylvania and New York and associated facilities. The briefs also defended FERC’s compliance with the Natural Gas Act and the Clean Water Act. FERC argued that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) did not require it to consider potential impacts from increases in natural gas production and that it had “reasonably analyzed” the pipeline project’s greenhouse gas emissions. FERC said it had explained its exclusion from emissions calculations of alleged loss of carbon sinks, that it had not improperly rejected the significance of the project’s potential emissions based on a comparison to total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and that it was not required to assess the project’s incremental contribution to climate change. FERC also said that it had not impermissibly segmented its review of the Constitution Pipeline Project from consideration of the impacts of other pipeline proposals. Three intervening parties—the pipeline project’s developer, the owner and operator of an existing pipeline system to which the Constitution Pipeline would connect, and the Natural Gas Supply Association—also filed briefs defending FERC’s authorizations of the pipeline, including FERC’s consideration of greenhouse gas and climate change impacts.