Docket No. CP22-44-000
I concur with the result of today’s Order, but dissent from its discussion regarding the Commission’s ability to assess the significance of the impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.[1] I do so for the same reasons I dissented from other recent orders containing similarly objectionable language.[2]
Paragraphs 47 and 48 of the Order suggest the Commission has definitively concluded that the Social Cost of GHGs protocol is inherently unsuitable for determining the significance of GHG emissions associated with natural gas infrastructure projects. Moreover, the Order says that there is no other “currently scientifically accepted method that would enable the Commission to determine the significance of reasonably foreseeable GHG emissions.”[3] Until recently, the Commission had explained that it was not determining the significance of GHG emissions because the issue of how to do so is under consideration in the docket for the Commission’s draft GHG Policy Statement.[4] This Order does not say that. Readers might therefore reasonably conclude that the Commission has decided it is impossible for it to determine the significance of GHG emissions, despite the fact it has never responded to comments in the GHG Policy Statement docket addressing methods for doing so.[5]
I do not know whether the Social Cost of GHGs protocol or another tool can or should be used to determine significance. That is because the Commission has not seriously studied the answer to that question. Rather, the majority has simply decided there is no acceptable method, with no explanation of why the Commission departs from the approach so recently taken in other certificate orders.[6] As I have said before, the Commission should decide the important unresolved issues relating to our assessment of GHG emissions through careful deliberation in a generic proceeding with full transparency.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent in part.
[1] Equitrans, L.P., 183 FERC ¶ 61,200, at PP 47-48 (2023) (Order).
[2] See, e.g., Commonwealth LNG, LLC, 183 FERC ¶ 61,173 (2023) (Clements, Comm’r, dissenting at PP 5-8); Rio Grande LNG, LLC and Rio Bravo Pipeline Company, LLC, 183 FERC ¶ 61,046 (2023) (Clements, Comm’r, dissenting at PP 14-15); Texas LNG Brownsville LLC, 183 FERC ¶ 61,047 (2023) (Clements, Comm’r, dissenting at PP 14-15); Driftwood Pipeline LLC, 183 FERC ¶ 61,049 (2023) (Clements, Comm’r, dissenting at PP 2-3).
[3] Order at P 47.
[4] See, e.g., Transcon. Gas Pipe Line Co., 182 FERC ¶ 61,006, at P 73 & n.174 (2023); Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC, 182 FERC ¶ 61,171, at P 46 & n.93 (2023).
[5] See Docket No. PL21-3.
[6] To depart from prior precedent without explanation violates the Administrative Procedure Act. See, e.g., West Deptford Energy, LLC v. FERC, 766 F.3d 10, 17 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (“[T]he Commission cannot depart from [prior] rulings without providing a reasoned analysis.”) (citations omitted).