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Rio Grande LNG Rehearing Denial Raises New Issues for FERC
14 February 2020IHS Markit Energy Expert
In rejecting rehearing requests about the Rio Grande LNG project
(FERC Docket CP16-454) and related Rio Bravo Pipeline (Docket
CP16-455) at its January 23 meeting, FERC raised new issues about
its review of project certificates, which again pitted
Commissioners Richard Glick and Bernard McNamee against each
other.
While they agreed that the speed of the rejection—31
days—represents an important improvement in project review (see
related article), they disagreed about the validity of and broad
application of the reasons for rejecting the rehearing.
"I have several concerns," said Glick, who dissented on the 2-1
decision.
First, he turned to the familiar issue of greenhouse gas
impacts, saying that the Commission continues to fail to fully
consider climate change. The Rio Grande LNG liquefaction plant at
full capacity of 27 million metric tons/year would generate an
estimated 9 million metric tons/year of greenhouse gases, he said,
or the equivalent of 2 million cars/year.
But FERC continues to argue, according to Glick, that it cannot
assess if that level of emissions is significant, nor can it
require the project developer to mitigate them even if they are
found to be significant. "Commissioner McNamee says we don't have
the authority over emissions, that EPA has the authority," said
Glick at the open meeting. "I don't contest that FERC doesn't have
authority over emissions, and we don't have authority over
wetlands, air quality, water quality either - but we seem to be
able to require mitigation [for those impacts]. Somehow, we treat
GHG differently than every other environmental impact."
McNamee responded in his opening remarks by saying that Glick is
missing the "nuance" of the situation that makes GHG emissions
different than mitigation of something like a damaged wetlands
area. "On things like wetlands, or noise impacts, for example,
there is another [federal] agency that establishes standards and
the mitigation. We usually rely on the other agency," McNamee said.
"In the case of GHG, where there is no standard out there, we do
not have authority, and neither does EPA."
Without a standard, FERC cannot judge how to mitigate the
emissions, McNamee said. It's simply not the same as requiring a
certain amount of wetlands restoration to mitigate the loss of
certain amount of wetlands.
Glick's other major dissent point is that FERC erred in its
original approval—and admitted it erred—and has not
corrected its mistake. "When we first issued the project approvals
in November, the Commission concluded that ozone emissions
associated with the projects weren't significant. But rehearing
parties pointed out that we got that wrong - and the Commission
admits that we got it wrong," Glick said. "But then we don't do
anything about it - no mitigation, no action whatsoever."
In rejecting the rehearing, Glick said that all the
commissioners agree that ozone-creating emissions will affect
residents living near the LNG facility. But Glick then said the
majority (McNamee and Chairman Neal Chatterjee) arrived at a
conclusion that he finds illogical—that because almost all of
those residents are racial minorities and/or low-income, the
project won't have a disproportionate impact on them, compared to
the general population.
Glick called this "a pretty twisted view of environmental
justice…. So, we are essentially saying we will locate these
facilities into low-income minority communities because there's no
social justice impact…. That is not what Congress told us to
do."
McNamee said that he agrees that environmental justice "is a
very important issue," and he said, "The points that Commissioner
Glick has identified are well-taken, in terms of the logic that if
everyone in a group of people is impacted are the same, what are
you comparing to?"
But McNamee said that, again, this is a nuanced situation. He
said that the LNG liquefaction terminal is being proposed for a
specific location because of the features of the Brownsville Ship
channel, not because it will be near low-income residents with
little political power. "It's not targeting those communities," he
said.
