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[co-author: Juan Dawson]
On November 17, 2022, FERC accredited an utility authorizing Commonwealth LNG, LLC (“Commonwealth”) to website, assemble, and function a liquified pure fuel (“LNG”) export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The LNG facility’s authorization drew concurring opinions from 4 of the Commissioners.
The Commonwealth facility will encompass six liquefaction trains and storage amenities that may course of home pure fuel into LNG for export of as much as 1.21 billion cubic ft per day pursuant to the Division of Vitality’s (“DOE”) export authorization.
After the issuance of the ultimate Environmental Influence Assertion (“EIS”), the Fee licensed the power, topic to customary circumstances for the power to adjust to relevant legal guidelines and mitigate sure environmental impacts, and located that its siting, development, and operation is in keeping with public curiosity. A number of intervenors urged the Fee to think about the upstream and downstream results of the venture’s greenhouse fuel (“GHG”) emissions; nonetheless, the Fee declined to take action, citing the restrictions of its statutory authority below the Pure Fuel Act (“NGA”). Particularly, the Fee mentioned that its assessment of environmental impacts is proscribed to the siting, development, and operation of the power, whereas DOE is accountable for authorizing the export of the commodity itself. Regardless of this, the Fee’s order did acknowledge the incremental contribution of the power’s GHG emissions to future local weather impacts.
Chairman Glick and Commissioner Clements wrote separate concurring opinions lamenting the restrictions of FERC’s statutory authority to think about GHG emissions when contemplating siting functions for LNG export amenities below Part 3 of the NGA and referred to as on Congress to supply a clearer framework for the Fee to make its public curiosity determinations. In his concurring opinion, Commissioner Danly praised the Fee’s swift motion to approve Commonwealth’s utility following the ultimate EIS and urged the Fee to approve a number of pending tasks. Moreover, Commissioner Danly argued that the importance of GHG emissions from a venture shouldn’t be thought-about till a “credible methodology” is established. Commissioner Phillips wrote individually to underscore the EIS’s discovering of a disproportionately excessive and opposed environmental justice influence to the local people from the visible results of the power and to specific concern for the Fee’s strategy of mitigating impacts on environmental justice communities.
A replica of the Order will be discovered right here.
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