In re Millennium Pipeline Co.

FERC denied NYSDEC’s request to reopen the record or rehear FERC’s November 2016 authorization of the project. FERC said New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s contention that the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Sierra Club v. FERC, No. 16-1329, required FERC to quantify the project’s downstream greenhouse gas emissions and consider their impacts was untimely and that, in any event, the analysis had already been done.

On November 15, 2017, FERC denied the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (NYSDEC’s) request for rehearing of FERC’s determination that NYSDEC had waived its authority to issue a water quality certification for the Valley Lateral pipeline project, a 7.8-mile pipeline and related facilities that will transport natural gas from the mainline system to a new power plant in Orange County, New York.

After the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation conditionally denied an application for a water quality certification for a natural gas pipeline project on the ground that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had not adequately evaluated the project’s downstream greenhouse gas emissions, FERC issued a declaratory order finding that DEC had waived its authority to act on the application by failing to issue a decision within the one-year timeframe required by the Clean Water Act. FERC indicated that it would assess in a separate order DEC’s motion to reopen the record and to stay FERC’s November 2016 authorization of the project. DEC had argued that FERC should reopen the record to take evidence on downstream greenhouse gas impacts or grant rehearing to conduct supplemental environmental review.