Commissioner Richard Glick Statement
May 21, 2020
Docket No. CP19-471-000
Order: C-1
Dissent in Part Regarding Bluewater Gas Storage, LLC
I dissent in part from today’s order because it violates both the Natural Gas Act[1] (NGA) and the National Environmental Policy Act[2] (NEPA). The Commission once again refuses to consider the consequences its actions have for climate change. Although neither the NGA nor NEPA permit the Commission to ignore the climate change implications of constructing and operating this project, that is precisely what the Commission is doing here.
In today’s order authorizing Bluewater Gas Storage, LLC (Bluewater) to construct a new compressor station (Project), the Commission continues to treat greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change differently than all other environmental impacts.[3] The Commission again refuses to consider whether the Project’s contribution to climate change from GHG emissions would be significant, even though it quantifies the direct GHG emissions from the Project’s construction and operation.[4] That failure forms an integral part of the Commission’s decisionmaking: The refusal to assess the significance of the Project’s contribution to the harm caused by climate change is what allows the Commission to state that approval of the Project “would not constitute a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment”[5] and, as a result, conclude that the Project is in the public interest and required by the public convenience and necessity.[6] Claiming that a project has no significant environmental impacts while at the same time refusing to assess the significance of the project’s impact on the most important environmental issue of our time is not reasoned decisionmaking.
The Commission’s failure to meaningfully consider climate change forces me into dissenting from certificate orders that I might otherwise support. The operation of the Project is expected to emit 33,000 metric tons of CO2 annually,[7] which might not be significant. But the Commission refuses to even engage in that analysis.[8] Prior to issuing a section 7 certificate, the Commission must find both that the proposed project is needed, and that, on balance, its potential benefits outweigh its potential adverse impacts.[9] Although need for the Project is an important consideration, and demonstrated in today’s order,[10] need alone is not sufficient to find that the Project is consistent with the public interest. Instead, the Commission must also determine that the Project’s benefits outweigh its adverse impacts, including its GHG emissions, which the Commission cannot do without meaningfully evaluating the impacts of those emissions. I cannot join an order that countenances such an incomplete assessment of a project’s adverse impacts, regardless of what I might otherwise think of that project.
For all these reasons, and those articulated previously,[11] I respectfully dissent in part.
_____________________________
Richard Glick
Commissioner
[1] 15 U.S.C. § 717f (2018).
[2] National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321 et seq.
[3] Bluewater Gas Storage, LLC, 171 FERC ¶ 61,132 (2020) (Certificate Order).
[4] Bluewater Compression Project Environmental Assessment at Tables 10 & 11 (EA).
[5] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,132 at P 49; see also EA at 59.
[6] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,132 at P 50.
[7] Id. P 46; EA at Table 11.
[8] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,132 at P 47.
[9] See Sabal Trail, 867 F.3d at 1373 (explaining that section 7 of the NGA requires the Commission to balance “‘the public benefits [of a proposed pipeline] against the adverse effects of the project,’ including adverse environmental effects” (quoting Myersville Citizens for a Rural Cmty. v. FERC, 783 F.3d 1301, 1309 (D.C. Cir. 2015)).
[10] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,132 at PP 18-19.
[11] See, e.g., Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC, 171 FERC ¶ 61,032 (2020) (Glick, Comm’r, dissenting in part); Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC, 171 FERC ¶ 61,031 (2020) (Glick, Comm’r, dissenting in part); Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC, 170 FERC ¶ 61,045 (2020) (Glick, Comm’r, dissenting in part).