Archive for the ‘Pipelines’ Category

16 Nov

Second Term Preview of Environmental Regulation

Posted by John Renehan in Clean Air Act, Climate Change, Environmental Activism, Environmental Enforcement, Fuel Efficiency, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Hydraulic Fracturing, Oil and Gas Sector, Pipelines, Renewable Energy.

Photo by Carl Chapman, some rights reserved

In the next four years, the Obama administration will make its mark on energy and environmental laws, working through pending legislation and proposed regulation as well as considering further reforms in response to environmental and industry lobbying.

A Marten Law memo has the rundown on anticipated changes to energy and environmental laws. Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy, well chronicled at the Green Mien, is likely to continue. Federal renewable energy programs have seen opposition recently, and the outcome of the pending battle of the wind energy production tax credit will be an early test of the Obama Administration’s policy. Either way, renewable energy growth is likely to be lower in the coming years as production of natural gas continues to increase.

Fracking, too, has contributed to the domestic supply surge, while prompting calls for closer regulatory scrutiny. In response, the Obama Administration has proposed regulation of fracking on federal lands, and EPA is studying the potential impact of horizontal drilling on drinking water.

Energy infrastructure questions are on the agenda, too. Most importantly, the Administration will decide whether to authorize a re-routed Keystone XL pipeline bringing oil from Canadian tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico. Proposals for coal and natural gas export terminals are making their way through state and federal agencies as well.

In the news this week is Obama’s stance on climate change, a topic he avoided during his election campaign. A second term will ensure that EPA will proceed with its plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under existing provisions of the Clean Air Act, a plan upheld last summer by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In addition, EPA is expected to release standards for greenhouse gas emission from power plants and refineries. Several challenges to air quality rules are still pending, though, notably the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Boiler MACT rule affecting industrial facilities.

At a press conference Wednesday, President Obama responded to a reporter’s question about his specific plans to address climate change. You should read his entire response here, but he made himself clear that ignoring jobs and growth simply to address climate change is not on his agenda: “I won’t go for that.” An agenda for job growth that includes making a dent in climate change, however, is “something the American people would support.”

In addition to air and energy policy previews, Marten Law’s memo has summaries of expected policy developments in natural resources and hazardous waste regulation.

16 Feb

Monsanto’s Shiny New Corn, or, Losing Faith in the Democratic Process

Posted by Hester Serebrin in GM Foods, Pipelines, USDA.

Photo via photozou.jp. Some rights reserved.

Facebook, my email inbox, and the internet generally are awash today with pleas to “Tell Walmart to Reject Monsanto’s GE Sweet Corn!”

The questionable healthfulness of genetically engineered foods aside, this tactic made me a little sad. Despite 250 comments submitted directly to Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (part of the USDA), 229 of which begged the agency not to approve the corn, APHIS went ahead and granted Monsanto’s petition for nonregulated status for “MON 87460,” Corn Genetically Engineered for Drought Tolerance.

It’s sad, but true, I guess: the democratic process works most effectively when putting your money where your mouth is. “Whether you shop at Walmart or not, they are the largest U.S. food retailer, and if they won’t sell genetically engineered sweet corn, it’s likely that farmers won’t plant it,” points out Food & Water Watch, organizer of the most vocal campaign against the corn.

These kinds of campaigns use short, succinct summaries of the issues to grab attention and inform consumers, but if you’re interested in the details of process – how did we get here? – you can find a lot of the background information on Knowledge Mosaic.

A search for Monsanto corn on the Federal Register in Knowledge Mosaic’s Laws, Rules, and Agency Materials page gives you more than 100 documents to sift through. If you sort them to show the newest documents first, two parallel, but related, proceedings become clear.

The first is the aforementioned petition to grant MON 87460 nonregulated status: the initial notice of Monsanto’s petition came in early May of 2011, with a call for comments. It was seven months later that APHIS published their determination “that a corn line developed by the Monsanto Co. […], which has been genetically engineered for drought tolerance, is no longer considered a regulated article under our regulations .”

The second, perhaps scarier, thread shows how EPA regulations were changed to increase “the established tolerance for residues of glyphosate in or on corn.” Why? The Federal Register final rule says it plain as day: “Monsanto Company requested this tolerance under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”

Are we, as consumers, not being loud enough, at the right time? If APHIS had received 62,364 comments expressing discontent (the number of e-signatures on Food & Water Watches petition at the time of writing) instead of only 229*, could we have nipped GE corn in the bud? APHIS did extend the comment period on the Monsanto petition, after all. Or does APHIS only answer to Monsanto?

Food for thought.

 

* To be fair: Three of the submitted comments opposing a determination of nonregulated status included electronic attachments that consisted either of: (1) A single letter signed by numerous people (6,335 signatures), (2) many letters containing identical material (16,742 letters), or (3) a consolidated document of comments (22,500 comments).

10 Nov

FERC Requests Comments on Environmental Guidelines for Pipeline Construction

Posted by Hester Serebrin in FERC, Natural Gas, Pipelines.

Photo by James T M Towill. Some rights reserved.

FERC may have said it first, but Hogan Lovells said it louder. Or, at least, that’s who I was listening to more closely.

A recently Energy Alert from Hogan Lovells announced FERC’s intent to update two environmental guidance documents that dictate, in Hogan Lovells’ words, “baseline environmental mitigation measures the Commission requires for pipeline certificate applications.” The law firm points out that the updated guidelines will be “of vital importance in certificating the new pipeline construction that is expected in light of changing gas patterns resulting from the development of shale gas.”

The two existing guidance documents – Upland Erosion Control, Revegetation, and Maintenance Plan and Wetland and Waterbody Construction and Mitigation Procedures (collectively, the “Plan and Procedures”) – haven’t been updated since 2003.

FERC is calling all commenters – “from the natural gas industry, federal, state and local agencies, environmental consultants, inspectors, construction contractors, and other interested parties with special expertise with respect to environmental issues commonly associated with pipeline projects” – to submit their input and suggestions for modifications by January 18, 2012. Draft changes to the Plan and Procedures should be available in early 2012 for further public comment.

19 Oct

A New Face For Keystone Naysayers: Quiet Farmer Turned Liberal Hero, or Fictional Bruce Springsteen Character?

Posted by Kyle Hargus in Land Use, Pipelines.

Photo by listentoreason. Some rights reserved.

Because we’ve spent a fair amount of time here at Green Mien covering developments with the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, it feels only right to point readers toward an excellent story published in Monday’s New York Times, which examines the effects of the planned 1,700 mile pipeline on a smaller, more human level, by exposing struggles in the American heartland between landowners unwilling to sell access to their land and Transcanada, the Canadian energy giant behind the pipeline. The article highlights Randy Thompson, a cattle farmer in Nebraska who has now received two letters from Transcanada informing him that if he does not “negotiate a voluntary transfer” with the company, Transcanada would “be forced to invoke the power of eminent domain and will initiate condemnation proceedings against this property.”

Like a character plucked from the small-town folk ballads of Bruce Springsteen’s landmark album Nebraska, Thompson has quickly become a sort of quiet hero to those other landowners who feel negatively about Transcanada’s aggression in acquiring land. He even addressed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in May, opposing the pipeline for safety concerns, which based on info in past posts on the pipeline, may well be warranted. “We all have shared concerns that a pipeline of this magnitude and with such inherent risks could endanger our livelihoods and way of life. Most all of these family operations have been built through decades of hard work and love for the land on which we live,” wrote Thompson, of the fellow farmers and ranchers living along the pipeline’s proposed route.

“It has nothing to do with money,” he told the New York Times. “To me there are two critical issues. First of all, I am a citizen of the United States and a private citizen, and I don’t think that a foreign company that is putting pipeline for their private use has any business taking land us from us as private issue. The second issue is our water supply. The route they have selected for this thing is the most risky route they could have picked across the state of Nebraska.”

While Thompson has been taking his message to the people at public speaking arrangements, his concerns are being further validated in Congress this week, as two letters, one authored by Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden (Ore.), Patrick Leahy (Ver.), and Bernard Sanders (Ver.) and the other authored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and signed by 32 members of the House, were sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voicing further environmental concerns regarding the pipeline.

Meanwhile, in further related news, the Senate voted unanimously in favor of a bill that enforces higher safety standards on such pipelines, enacted in the wake of last year’s tragic pipeline explosion in San Bruno, CA. The measure would boost fines for violations, require more technologically advanced equipment, and also increase the amount of federal safety oversight over such projects.

27 Jul

Playing Catch-Up on Keystone XL

Posted by Kyle Hargus in Pipelines.

Photo by US State Department. All rights reserved.

When we last checked in on the Keystone XL Pipeline project, just over a month ago, the House Energy and Commerce Committee had just approved legislation that requested an answer from President Obama on approval of the contoversial $7 billion proposal to build on and extend the original Keystone Pipeline, which would carry oil from wells in northeastern Canada to refineries in the southern United States, by November 1st of this year.

As of Monday night, that legislation officially passed through the House by a vote of 279-147, a split which mostly ran down party lines, even as the White House released an official statement this week calling the sped-up legislation “unnecessary.” Democrats in the House spent Tuesday night trying to get 11 separate amendments to the bill passed, most containing heightened environmental warnings and safety measures, but were ultimately unsuccessful in each, though the bill is sure to have a much more difficult time getting through the Democrat-controlled Senate.

In the time since we’ve covered this story, University of Nebraska professor of environmental and water engineering John Stansbury released a study calling the Keystone XL pipeline project “unrealistically optimistic,” predicting a total of 91 oil spills of 50 barrels or more in the first 50 years of operation, compared to the 11 spills that TransCanada ceded was their predicted figure.

Meanwhile, the State Department announced that they would be conducting their third and Final Environmental Impact Statement on the project and issue their ruling by August 15th. You can find a full briefing on the State Dept. meeting of July 22nd on the subject of the pipeline here.

17 Nov

PHMSA’s Friendly Reminder: Always Be Prepared

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Pipelines.

On November 3rd, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued Advisory Bulletin 10-08, reminding gas and hazardous liquid pipeline operators to make available pipeline emergency response plans to local emergency response officials.

There are a few federal regulations that cover these requirements. According to the PHMSA Bulletin, under 49 CFR 192.605, 192.615, and 195.402, “operators must include in their emergency plans provisions for coordinating with appropriate fire, police, and other public officials both preplanned drills and actual responses to pipeline emergencies.” Operators are also obliged to maintain relationships with local emergency officials, and work with them to establish the respective roles and responsibilities in planning for and responding to emergencies.

Photo by RekonDog. Some rights reserved.

Under 49 CFR 192.616 and 195.440, operators must develop a public education program pursuant to the American Petroleum Institute’s Recommended Practice (RP) 1162. (RP 1162 is incorporated by reference into said CFR sections. The full text of the RP can be ordered here for $93.00, though you can browse a PHMSA Power Point on the subject for free.) The RP includes additional requirements for emergency response plans, such as providing information on  “how emergency officials can access the operator’s emergency response plan.”

All this to ensure that in the event of a pipeline-related emergency, things go as smoothly as possible, ideally benefiting from the required communication and practiced responses. But public safety shouldn’t be your only motivation in updating response plans:  PHMSA intends to “evaluate the extent to which operators have provided their emergency plans to local emergency officials when PHMSA performs future inspections for compliance with liaison and public awareness code requirements.” As Van Ness Feldman points out, this Bulletin suggests that “PHMSA plans to target enforcement efforts in this area. In light of recent pipeline accidents in California, Michigan, and Texas, PHMSA’s focus on emergency preparedness is likely to remain strong.”

29 Oct

Keystone Pipeline Causing XL Reactions

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Environmental Disclosure, Pipelines.

Photo by Loozrboy. Some rights reserved.

The Hill’s E2-Wire today released a copy of a letter sent to Secretary of State Clinton on behalf of eleven senators urging her not to be hasty in expressing her approval of the TransCanada Keystone XL pipelines project. The senators were mostly reacting to concerns raised in the recently issued Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposal, and requested answers to more than twenty probing questions on the state of the project and the Department of State’s (DOS) plan of action.

The “Keystone XL” project is a proposed pipeline that would carry crude oil from Alberta, Canada, 1,702 miles south to Texas. Because the pipelines cross into the US from Canada, TransCanada must obtain a permit from the DOS for the project to proceed. The EPA’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is therefore triggered, which means that as part of the approval process, a detailed EIS must be prepared. The EIS discloses the specifics of the project, as well as, more importantly, the potential environmental consequences and discussion of possible alternatives.

It’s this document that has been causing quite a fuss. The DOS, designated as lead agency for the EIS, released their draft EIS on April 16, 2010. The EPA, like the aforementioned senators, was not pleased with what they saw. In the EPA’s letter to the DOS, they gave the EIS the lowest “adequacy” rating possible, concluding that “the Draft EIS does not provide the scope or detail of analysis necessary to fully inform decision makers and the public, and recommend that additional information and analysis be provided.” To rub it in, they reminded that State that, “as with all projects that have not addressed potentially significant impacts, this proposal is a potential candidate for referral to CEQ.” One of the duties of the Council on Environmental Quality is to, according to the DOE, review “interagency disagreements concerning proposed major federal actions that might cause unsatisfactory environmental effects.”

Public comment on the draft EIS has ended, and input from other federal agencies was supposed to be given by September 15, 2010. However, after further consultation with the other agencies about “whether granting the application would be in the national interest,” the DOS has extended the agency input due date until 90 days after the final EIS is published. Of course, any extension at all is too much of a delay for the author of this bulletin from the Canadian law firm Gowlings, Peter Burn, who calls the EPA’s recommendations for the EIS “an unprecedented American intrusion into Canadian sovereign affairs.”

Despite all the protests, the project still seems to keep chugging along. A lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council was thrown out by a federal judge who claimed the NRDC lacked authority to bring the suit. And Canada’s National Energy Board has, of course,  already approved TransCanada’s behemoth of an application to construct and operate the pipeline, and Keystone XL has plenty of American fans in the Consumer Energy Alliance. Mr. Burn might just be in luck.

25 Oct

FERC (finally) asking public opinion on intrastate pipeline capacity transfers

Posted by Hester Serebrin in FERC, Pipelines.

Photo by Glen Dillon. Some rights reserved.

FERC buy/sell transactions, in the words of Fulbright & Jaworski, “involve a holder of transportation rights buying gas, transporting the gas using its transportation capacity, and then reselling the gas to the entity from which the gas was originally purchased.” These types of arrangements are often prohibited by FERC because they “can (a) be motivated by a desire to circumvent the shipper-must-have-title rule and (b) deprive shippers of equal access to transportation capacity.” However, FERC recently opened up for discussion the permissibility of these transactions on section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines.

311 pipelines are intrastate pipelines that offer interstate natural gas transportation and storage services pursuant to section 311 of the Natural Gas Policy Act, and Hinshaw pipelines, according to a recent Sutherland Alert, “are pipelines that receive gas from interstate commerce but operate wholly within one state.” Both pipelines typically fall outside of FERC jurisdiction.

Earlier this year, in an Order issued by FERC in a case involving Arizona Public Service Company, FERC unexpectedly expanded the scope of its prohibition on buy/sell transactions to include transactions on these intrastate pipelines. Because the prohibition came about via an order rather than through traditional rulemaking, several industry participants filed a request for rehearing, complaining that “the Commission notice issued in [the Arizona Public Service Co] proceeding provided no indication that the subject matter of the proceeding was anything other than a transaction specific waiver request. It was only after an order was issued that the significance of this proceeding could be known by industry participants.”

While FERC denied the request and declined to reverse the ruling, they opted to open a Notice of Inquiry on the topic, soliciting public comment on “whether and how holders of firm capacity on intrastate natural gas pipelines providing interstate transportation and storage services […] should be permitted to allow others to make use of their firm interstate capacity.”

In the meantime, FERC is temporarily allowing all existing and new buy/sell transactions involving section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines to go forward. Stakeholders wishing to comment on the NOI should do so within 60 days of publication in the Federal Register (which is expected later this week). For further detail on this subject, I highly recommend the Fulbright article and the Sutherland Alert quoted at the beginning of this post.

***

Tip for knowledgemosaic subscribers: to be kept informed of further developments, consider setting up a law firm memo alert using the term Hinshaw. You will be sent a daily email when newly posted memos match your search terms.

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