| The federal agency charged with overseeing the nation's energy system just approved a spate of natural gas pipelines, bringing complaints from Democrats that it’s threatening blue states' ambitious climate goals. Among the projects the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission OK’d on Thursday is the Gas Transmission Northwest XPress Project from TC Energy in the Pacific Northwest. That fueled angry responses from West Coast Democrats concerned about their states’ climate goals, write Jason Plautz and Zach Bright. The strongest rebuke came from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who criticized the commission as a “completely captured agency” and “one huge rubber stamp.” Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee followed, saying he was discussing legal options to block the gas project. “It’s just inconsistent with what the West Coast is doing in trying to develop a clean energy economy,” Inslee said in an interview Thursday. “It strikes right at the heart of our West Coast plans.” Several environmental groups said they will challenge the ruling on the pipeline. The approved pipeline project would allow Idaho, Washington and Oregon to import 150 million cubic feet of extra natural gas per day, when the Northwest states are scrambling to meet their climate targets. Both Washington and Oregon are aiming to cut carbon emissions by 45 percent compared with 1990 levels. The Biden administration, meanwhile, has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by the same year compared with 2005 numbers. In previous comments to FERC, the attorneys general of California, Oregon and Washington said the commission had not done enough to evaluate climate impacts of the new gas project. Congress, courts could be next
If FERC’s signoff is challenged, the agency will first rehear the case. If states and enviros still object to the final decision, they can take the agency to a federal appeals court. Merkley went a step further and signaled that he will drive conversation in Congress to overhaul FERC, adding that the agency needs to be “scrapped” and “start over.” (That could be a tall order, considering that the House is both in Republican hands and lacks a speaker.) “If our national policy is that we are going to take on climate change, we have to dump an agency that greenlights fossil fuel project after fossil fuel project,” Merkley said. FERC is an independent agency but is not completely free of political influence, as the president nominates its five commissioners. In May, as part of the debt ceiling deal, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed to fast-track the Mountain Valley Pipeline. FERC approved the controversial 300-mile project from West Virginia to Virginia a month later, drawing a strong backlash from climate advocates.
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