With the US Environmental Protection Agency now mostly mum on climate change comments, public interest groups and think tanks are stepping up pressure on the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over the environmental impact statement for the Midcontinent Supply Header Interstate Pipeline Project.
The Institute for Policy Integrity, Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club, in a filing Tuesday, faulted FERC for a failure to account for the social cost of greenhouse gases in the draft EIS for Cheneire Energy's proposed 200-mile, 1.4 Bcf/d natural gas pipeline. The project would add feedgas supplies at Cheniere's LNG terminals and provide access to gas from prolific plays in Oklahoma's Anadarko basin.
To bolster their arguments, they pointed to recent dissents by FERC commissioners Cheryl LaFleur and Rich Glick over climate change considerations in interstate natural gas pipeline orders. FERC staff, in a favorable draft EIS February 9, found that the MIDSHIP project would have some adverse impacts, but those would be reduced to "less than significant levels" with mitigation measures laid out by the developer and the commission. As has been FERC's practice recently, the draft EIS quantifies downstream GHG emissions related to the project; the agency included an upper bound estimate of nearly 28 million mt/year of CO2.
"Because we cannot determine the MIDSHIP Project's incremental physical impacts on the environment caused by climate change, we cannot determine whether the project's contribution to cumulative impacts on climate change would be significant," the draft EIS said.
EPA WEIGHED IN ON WATER, NOT CLIMATE
EPA, in April 2 scoping comments, raised environmental concerns and made specific recommendations for minimizing water quality impacts, such as defining parameters for stream impacts. But it was silent on climate change considerations, an area where it was once vocal under the prior administration.
The environmental groups, in a detailed legal and technical filing, faulted FERC for failing to weigh in on the significance of the GHG impacts and failing to quantify costs of GHG emissions as it does economic benefits of the project.
FERC merely "recapitulates flawed arguments used in other inadequate [National Environmental Policy Act] reviews" to explain its reasoning for declining to use the social cost of carbon metric, they argued.
Their filing continues debate in the wake of an August 2017 DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Sierra Club v. FERC that found FERC failed to provide enough information about GHG emissions of downstream power plants associated with the Southeast Market Pipelines project.
FERC last month reinstated certificate orders for the projects and included estimates of GHG emissions from the power plants to respond to the court remand. But commissioners split over whether FERC fully responded to the court's mandate on climate change considerations. Glick and LaFleur objected to the orders' finding that FERC could not discern the significance of the GHG impacts.
One aspect of the court ruling asked FERC to explain its reasoning for not using the social cost of carbon, a tool developed for monetizing climate impacts. The agency in its revised orders said the tool was more suited for regulators deciding on fossil fuel production or consumption.
LAFLEUR DISSENT POINTED TO USES OF TOOL
In pushing for more in the MIDSHIP EIS, the groups cite LaFleur's dissent, which noted the tool was developed precisely to inform decisions on proposed actions and evaluate the significance of downstream GHG emissions.
They argued that while FERC has monetized economic benefits like millions of dollars' worth of tax revenue and payroll expenditures, it failed in the draft EIS to similarly monetize climate costs of the project.
In calling for a "hard look" at impacts, NEPA requires more than simply disclosing the volume of anticipated emissions, they said, highlighting Glick's comments as well that: "Willful ignorance of readily available analytical tools to support an enhanced qualitative assessment for the single largest environmental threat in our lifetime will undermine informed public comments and informed decision-making."
The social cost of carbon is an estimate of economic cost of emitting a ton of CO2, developed by an interagency workgroup. While a Trump administration executive order disbanded the working group, the groups contend the executive order nonetheless assumes federal agencies will continue to monetize the value of changes in GHG emissions, and they assert that FERC must use estimates that reflect the best available data and methods.
Moreover they argue that the social cost metric is appropriate for a project-level EIS with emissions of the magnitude of the MIDSHIP project.
"Under any reasonable application of the social cost of greenhouse gas metrics, the emissions from the [MIDSHIP] project will cause hundreds of millions of dollars in climate damages," they contended.
A spokesman for Cheniere had no comment on the filing.
