A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider its ruling that greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas pipelines and the impacts of those emissions should be considered when such projects are approved, Kallanish Energy reports.
The Wednesday ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rebuffed efforts by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the pipeline builders to get the earlier decision reversed.
The Sierra Club, one of the parties involved in the suit, called for the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline in Florida to be shut down until FERC completes what the eco-group called “a thorough and complete review of the overall impact” of the pipeline.
The Sabal Trail is part of the larger $3.5 billion Southeast Markets Pipeline Project in three states.
Last year, the appeals court had vacated the pipeline permit because FERC had not considered the climate change impacts of the pipeline.
FERC later issued an eight-page revised Environmental Impact Statement on the pipeline in Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
The pipelines stretch 685 miles to bring natural gas to Florida power plants. They include the Sabal Trail Pipeline, Florida Southeast Connection and Transco’s Hillabee Expansion. The pipelines went into service last summer.
The appeals court had ruled FERC had failed to properly analyze the climate impact from the burning of natural gas that the project would deliver to Florida power plants under the National Environmental Policy Act.
The appeals court told FERC it must either quantify the impacts of greenhouse gases or explain why it did not do so.
FERC said it was unable to find a suitable and appropriate method to attribute discrete environmental effects to greenhouse gas emissions.
Its summary estimated natural gas from the pipelines might boost greenhouse gas emissions in Florida from 3.7% to 9.7% from 2014 levels.
FERC concluded the project “would not result in a significant impact on the environment.”
