Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

Virginia landowners urge FERC to require cancelled Atlantic Coast Pipeline to relinquish easements

Virginia Mercury: Virginia landowners urge FERC to require cancelled Atlantic Coast Pipeline to relinquish easements.

Several dozen landowners who granted easements to the developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are asking federal regulators to require the pipeline to give up them up now that the project has been cancelled.

“I signed an easement agreement in October 2018 because I felt I had no choice,” wrote Judy Allen in comments filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this April concerning two Bath County properties the pipeline was to traverse. “The current easement places an unwarranted burden on me and limits my ability to use the property as my sons and I desire.”

The Daily Climate, March 22, 2021

Articles include: Inuits and melting ice; Australia flooding; coal’s impact on the health of neighbors; electric vehicle opposition; climate justice and leaking oil wells; Volkswagen’s move to electric vehicles; deforestation; California real estate; Biden’s infrastructure plan; FERC shift on pipeline CO2 emissions.

In a rare rebuke, FERC fails to approve Mountain Valley Pipeline’s proposal

Roanoke Times: In a rare rebuke, FERC fails to approve Mountain Valley Pipeline’s proposal.

Federal regulators hit the brakes Tuesday on a request to speed up construction of a portion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, throwing another wrench into the problematic project.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission deadlocked 2-2 on Mountain Valley’s request to bore under streams and wetlands along the pipeline’s first 77 miles in West Virginia.

After running into legal problems with a permitting process that would have allowed digging trenches through water bodies, the company asked FERC to authorize an alternative method of drilling a tunnel below some of the streams and wetlands through which the pipe would pass.

How Biden Can Put the U.S. on a Path to Carbon-Free Electricity

Yale Environment 360 discusses How Biden Can Put the U.S. on a Path to Carbon-Free Electricity. Even without strong action by Congress, President-elect Joe Biden will have a wide array of tools — from expanding renewables on federal lands to pushing the financial industry on climate change — that could put the U.S. on a trajectory to decarbonizing its electricity sector by 2035.

President-elect Joe Biden campaigned on a goal of “a carbon pollution-free power sector” by 2035. The United States is now at 38 percent — 19 percent from nuclear, 18 percent from renewables — and the challenge of moving from 38 percent to 100 percent in 15 years is even more daunting than it looks, given the upcoming retirement of nuclear power plants and the prospect that Biden may not get much help from Congress.

A deeper look, however, shows that the Biden administration — with its commitment to make fighting climate change a core goal across the federal government — has a wide array of actions it can take to move the U.S. far closer to decarbonizing its electricity sector. These steps include everything from significantly expanding solar and wind power installations on federal lands, to reforming the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Department of Energy to favor renewable energy development over fossil fuels, to using the levers of government to ensure that dealing with climate change becomes an important priority for the country’s financial industry.

4 solar fights critical for 100% clean electricity

E&E News discusses 4 solar fights critical for 100% clean electricity.

Residential solar policy isn’t as widely tracked as the presidential election, but it is decided in much the same way: state by state.

That’s important as President-elect Joe Biden’s 100% clean power agenda may depend in part on state policies that he doesn’t control.

Regulators from California to Connecticut, for example, have big calls to make in the months and years ahead on solar and net metering. And, like the Electoral College, state solar decisions will carry collective weight.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission confirmed the role of states in rooftop solar policy over the summer, rejecting a petition seeking to end net metering nationally (Energywire, July 17).

Federal regulators order Atlantic Coast Pipeline to provide a plan for project wind-down, restoration

Virginia Mercury discusses Federal regulators order Atlantic Coast Pipeline to provide a plan for project wind-down, restoration.

Almost four months after the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, federal regulators have ordered the project developers to provide a plan for what they intend to do with the facilities and the lands where the natural gas pipeline was supposed to be built.

The order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission applies to both the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Supply Header Project, a roughly 38-mile pipeline that was expected to connect the ACP with existing pipelines in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

All is not well with the Mountain Valley Pipeline – 2 articles

Virginia Mercury discusses how, rosy projections aside, all is not well with the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Following the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline have not been shy about talking up their own project in the Appalachian region. However, behind the rosy pronouncements of late, all is far from well with the MVP. In early August, Reuters reported that MVP “still expects to complete the $5.4 billion Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline…in early 2021.” Taken at face value, it might appear the project is on track, but in an article from June 2018 The Roanoke Times noted that MVP is “still aiming to have the $3.7 billion project in operation by the end of the year.” Now, MVP has requested the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission grant an extension of its construction timeline until Oct. 13, 2022. The reality is that MVP is over two years behind schedule and $2 billion over budget. Given federal permit suspensions, a nearly year-long — and counting — project-wide Stop Work order, ongoing legal challenges and ballooning financial woes, MVP cannot forecast when, or if, the project will be finished.

A second Virginia Mercury article discusses the ‘last pipeline’? Mountain Valley Pipeline remains stalled as it seeks extension from federal regulators.

NC regulators deny environmental permit for fracked-gas Southgate pipeline

Appalachian V0ices discusses how NC regulators deny environmental permit for fracked-gas Southgate pipeline.

Today, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality denied the permit application for Southgate extension of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The agency said “that work on the Southgate extension could lead to unnecessary water quality impacts and disturbance of the environment in North Carolina.”

After questioning the need for the project to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the DEQ has denied a Clean Water Act permit that would have allowed Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC to cross water bodies in North Carolina and to begin using eminent domain to take private land in both Virginia and North Carolina.

The Appalachian V0ices website is at https://appvoices.org/

FERC prohibits pipeline construction, allows land seizures as court weighs ‘legal purgatory’ of rehearing delays

Utility Dive discusses FERC prohibits pipeline construction while the court case goes on, but allows land seizures as court weighs ‘legal purgatory’ of rehearing delays.

Federal regulators, under scrutiny from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, issued an order Wednesday prohibiting natural gas pipeline developers from beginning construction on a project until regulators act on rehearing requests.
The order addresses in part issues raised during the court’s April en banc hearing in Allegheny Defense Project v. FERC. The case centers on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) practice of continuously delaying requests for rehearing under the Natural Gas Act. Petitioners argued in part that the commission has been delaying requests for rehearing indefinitely, while allowing construction on controversial pipeline projects to proceed.
FERC Commissioner Richard Glick dissented in part to the order. Though the order is “a step in the right direction,” it does not address the concern that pipeline developers can still begin to condemn private land before the landowner is able to challenge the developer’s ability to do so, he said.

DeSmogBlog, Week of May 8, 2020

This week’s articles include: