FERC’s procedures fail to identify environmental justice communities and require more thorough analysis methods and community engagement

FERC’s statutory authority over wholesale and interstate electricity transactions was established in the 1935 Federal Power Act and further expanded with the 1938 Natural Gas Act (NGA). To construct and operate a pipeline, a company must apply for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from FERC. According to 15 U.S.C. § 717f of the NGA, “a certificate shall be issued to any qualified applicant...if it is found...that the proposed [operation] is or will be required by the present or future public convenience and necessity; otherwise such application shall be denied.” There is little room for interpretation here; a project must be required by the public to be approved by FERC, otherwise the permit must be denied.

We argue that FERC’s current approach for establishing what is “necessary” does not sufficiently prove “public interest” in the face of environmental injustice concerns. Below, we discuss flaws in FERC’s current environmental justice (EJ) protocols and propose alternative methods to assess EJ impacts along natural gas pipeline infrastructure. Note that while our discussion is focused on short-term impacts on local populations, we also strongly encourage FERC to consider larger-scale consequences of greenhouse gas emissions in its EJ assessments, as climate change causes and exacerbates a myriad of global EJ issues that extend beyond communities directly along pipeline routes (Chakraborty et al., 2019; Eccles et al., 2019; Hsu et al., 2021).