In re Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied requests for rehearing of its order authorizing construction and operation of the Atlantic Sunrise Project, which includes approximately 200 miles of interstate natural gas pipeline and related facilities in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Environmental and citizen groups had asserted that FERC failed to take greenhouse gas impacts into account in several ways; FERC rejected each of these arguments. FERC said the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) did not require it to consider indirect effects of induced gas production, including greenhouse gas emissions, because there was not a causal relationship between FERC’s action and additional production and, in any event, the scope of impacts from any such induced production was not reasonably foreseeable. FERC also found that it adequately considered the project’s downstream impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, noting that it had estimated the greenhouse gas emissions associated with combustion of the gas to be transported by the project as required by the D.C. Circuit in its decision regarding the Southeast Market Pipelines Project. FERC said it could not quantify possible effects the project would have on renewable energy production.

Environmental groups filed an amended request for rehearing with FERC on September 22, 2017, arguing that a supplemental environmental impact statement analyzing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts was required in light of the D.C. Circuit’s August 22, 2017 decision in Sierra Club v. FERC, No. 16-1329, which required FERC to do more to assess downstream greenhouse gas emissions and other climate impacts with respect to another pipeline project. The groups contended that the environmental review of the Atlantic Sunrise project had “impermissibly downplay[ed] cumulative climate impacts” as well as downstream greenhouse gas emissions and asserted that FERC was required to use the social cost of carbon to assess the project’s impacts and to analyze or explore mitigation for the project’s combustion impacts. The groups said FERC should halt construction and rescind a notice to proceed issued earlier in September.

FERC denied requests for a stay of its February 3, 2017 order authorizing construction and operation of the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project. FERC said the parties requesting the stay had not established that they would suffer irreparable harm. FERC noted that it had yet to consider the merits of any requests for rehearing. Parties had argued that flaws in FERC’s review of the pipeline project included failure to address downstream greenhouse gas impacts.

Two requests for rehearing filed with FERC asked the Commission to withdraw its order authorizing the Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline expansion project and the final environmental impact statement for the project and to redo the environmental analysis and public convenience and necessity analysis in compliance with NEPA and the NGA. The Atlantic Sunrise project included approximately 200 miles of new pipeline, mostly in Pennsylvania, and related infrastructure in Pennsylvania and at other locations on the East Coast. One request for rehearing was filed by seven environmental and community organizations led by Allegheny Defense Project; the other request was filed by Accokeek, Mattawoman, Piscataway Creeks Communities Council Inc. The requests enumerated numerous alleged deficits in the environmental review, including a “fatally flawed” cumulative impacts analysis that “all but ignor[ed] the substantial impacts of Marcellus and Utica shale gas development and climate change” and a failure to adequately consider the project’s downstream impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.