Underground Construction - February 2019 - 8

WASHINGTONWATCH

Stephen Barlas | Washington Editor

U.S. Chamber Details Impacts of Pipeline, LNG Opposition

A

A new U.S. Chamber of Commerce
study estimates that at least $91.9
billion in domestic economic activity
and nearly 730,000 job opportunities
were lost because of environmental
opposition to the construction
of pipeline and liquid natural gas
projects.
The Chamber's Global Energy
Institute (GEI) looked at the circumstances leading to either delay or
cancellation of 15 projects and a
widely used input-output model of
the economy to calculate the activity
and job losses due to what it calls the
anti-energy "Keep it in the Ground"
(KIITG) movement. The report was
published on Dec. 18, 2018.
"The anti-energy movement's
opposition to vital energy infrastructure comes with a real cost:
lost job opportunities and billions
in prevented domestic economic
activity," said Karen Harbert, president
and CEO of the GEI. "Unfortunately,
a small but vocal group of activists is
waging fights against these projects
around the nation."
The majority of the 15 projects
covered in the report include
high-profile ones such as the Constitution Pipeline, which New York State
has blocked over Clean Water Act
permits, the Jordan Cove LNG and
Pacific Connector Pipeline, and the
Keystone XL Pipeline.
The Jordan Cove project, for example, landed at the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) for
the first time in December 2007
when it applied for approval to export
LNG from Coos Bay, Ore. According
to the GEI report, No LNG Exports,
a large activist coalition involving
groups such as Citizens Against
LNG, Columbia Riverkeeper, Sierra
Club, Rogue Climate, Stop Fracked
Gas PDX and more, led much of the
opposition campaign using a broad
range of tactics and public pressure.
In August 2018, FERC published a
Notice of Schedule for the project,
outlining an anticipated publication
date of the Draft Environmental

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FEBRUARY 2019 | UConOnline.com

Impact Statement in February 2019,
with a decision on the final statement
in November 2019.
In December 2017, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley (D), who introduced
the Keep it in the Ground Act of 2017,
announced his opposition to the
project. Under his bill, there would
be no new leases for extraction of
fossil fuels - such as coal, oil and
gas - on all federal lands. It would
also stop new leases for offshore
drilling in the Pacific and the Gulf of
Mexico, and prohibit offshore drilling
in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. The
bill does not mention the Jordan
Cove project and does not appear to
apply to onshore LNG and pipeline
construction.
Merkley's bill also has a House
counterpart, but neither that bill nor
Merkley's progressed at all in the last
Congress. With Democrats taking
over control of the House, the bill's
prospects, at least in the House,
could improve markedly in 2019.
For example, House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi has designated a new House
select committee on climate crisis.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), the chair
of the committee, has promised to
decline all campaign contributions
from coal, oil or gas companies.
However, Martin Edwards,
INGAA's vice president for legislative
affairs, cautioned, "I wouldn't be expecting Congress to legislate much
on energy policy in the coming two
years given the wide gulf of views
between the House, Senate and
White House."

Court Raises Questions
About Federal
Approval of Atlantic
Coast Pipeline
One of the projects discussed in the
U.S. Chamber report is the Atlantic
Coast pipeline, which received its
latest rebuff in December from a
U.S. Court of Appeals that rejected
permits issued by the U.S. Forest Service. The permits allow the 600-mile
pipeline, whose primary sponsor is

Dominion Energy, to cross U.S. Forest
Service land including a section
beneath the Appalachian Trial. The
court argued the Forest Service improperly allowed the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) to
ignore environmental concerns the
Forest Service raised.
The three-judge panel issuing
the decision criticized FERC directly.
"FERC's analysis of alternative pipeline
routes remained unchanged from
the DEIS to the FEIS, and there is no
other evidence apparent from the record that FERC addressed the Forest
Service's concerns about off-forest
alternative routes," it stated.
The panel's decision, if upheld by
the full Court of Appeals addressing
Dominion's appeal, could force FERC
to be more careful in considering
the full panoply of federal agency
environmental concerns in the future
when preparing a final environmental impact statement (FEIS).
Moreover, the decision could
force agencies such as the Forest
Service, Fish and Wildlife Service,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and Environmental
Protection Agency, all of which can
have input to FERC's preparation of
a FEIS, to take steps to keep project
sponsors at arm's length. The Fourth
Circuit panel implied that the Forest
Service bent over backward in ignoring its environmental concerns in
order to satisfy Dominion's timeline
for getting the Atlantic Pipeline up
and running.
The court wrote: "A thorough
review of the record leads to the
necessary conclusion that the Forest
Service abdicated its responsibility to
preserve national forest resources.
This conclusion is particularly
informed by the Forest Service's
serious environmental concerns that
were suddenly, and mysteriously,
assuaged in time to meet a private
pipeline company's deadlines."
The developers of the Atlantic
Coast pipeline designed the 600mile route so that it crossed the

Appalachian Trail on U.S. Forest Service
land, not on U.S. Park Service land,
which would have obviated many of
the environmental issues related to
the Appalachian Mountain crossing.
But crossing Park Service land would
have required congressional approval,
which Dominion apparently thought
would be hard to get.
When commenting on FERC's
draft EIS, the Forest Service offered
numerous objections to FERC on
the proposed Dominion route. But
FERC did not consider some of those
objections in its final EIS, and the
Forest Service raised no objections
when its input was ignored. Dominion
has criticized the court's December
decision on a number of grounds.
"With this decision, the Fourth Circuit has undermined the judgment of
the dedicated professionals at nearly
every federal agency that has reviewed
this project," stated Karl R. Neddenien,
spokesperson for Dominion Energy.
"All of these agencies agree that
the Forest Service has the full legal
authority to approve the Atlantic Coast
Pipeline's crossing of the Appalachian
Trail. By installing the Atlantic Coast
Pipeline more than 600 feet below the
surface of the Appalachian Trail, we
will completely avoid any impacts to
the Trail or its public use."
The court decision threw an
extra bit of fire into its unhappiness
with the FERC, by referring to the
Commission's FEIS, which cited the
Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline
as an example of an existing pipeline in
the Appalachian Mountains that safely
crosses karst terrain.
"Significantly, during the briefing of
this case, a landslide in Marshall County, West Virginia, caused the Columbia
pipeline - highlighted by the Forest
Service for its safety and stability - to
rupture and explode," the court wrote.
Clearly, the Forest Service's concerns
about landslide risks and pipeline safety highlighted in its" Oc. 24, 2016, letter
deserve serious consideration, for the
protection of both the environment
and the public."
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