Should Federal, State, and Local Agencies Coordinate Environmental Reviews of Natural Gas Pipelines? (H.R. 2910)

What is H.R. 2910?

(Updated February 27, 2021)

This bill would direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to create a process for coordinating reviews between federal, state, and local agencies in which it would serve as the lead agency when siting natural gas pipelines that cross state lines. Assuming other agencies accept FERC’s invitation to serve as participants in the environmental review process, they would defer to the commission to the greatest extent allowed by law so that the review can meet deadlines set by this legislation.

If an agency notifies FERC that it doesn’t have jurisdiction related to the pipeline authorization, lacks expertise or information relevant to the review, or doesn’t intend to submit comments for review they wouldn’t be considered participants. Agencies that aren’t designated participants wouldn’t be able to request or conduct a NEPA environmental review in addition to the one conducted by FERC unless the agency demonstrates that it’s legally necessary and requires information that couldn’t have been obtained during FERC’s review. FERC wouldn’t consider any comments or information provided by a non-designated agency or include such comments in its review.

A deadline for a federal pipeline authorization would be set 90 days after FERC completes its NEPA review, and each participating agency would develop a plan for completing its consideration in that timeframe. If that deadline isn’t met at a given agency, it would be required to notify FERC and Congress of the failure and provide a plan to ensure the completion of the action to be taken.

Argument in favor

Interstate natural gas pipelines require detailed environmental reviews that should be conducted simultaneously by relevant federal, state, and local agencies with the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission serving as the lead agency.

Argument opposed

Federal, state, and local agencies should be able to carry out environmental reviews of interstate natural gas pipelines as their own pace, even if that means that timelines for reviews and decisions to authorize pipelines don’t match.

Impact

Businesses and consumers affected by proposed natural gas pipelines; environmental regulators with oversight of natural gas pipelines at the federal, state, and local level.

Cost of H.R. 2910

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sponsoring Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) introduced this bill to modernize the permitting process for natural gas pipelines to better allow the U.S. to capitalize on its energy resources:

“America is one of the world’s top oil and gas producers thanks to the shale revolution. Our energy infrastructure and permitting process must be updated to reflect America’s abundance of domestic energy resources. Modernizing the permitting process for the nation’s pipeline infrastructure allows us to efficiently and safely bring those resources to our downstream assets, ultimately to consumers, to power our economy, and to give opportunities to our hard-working American families.”

This legislation passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a party-line, 30-23 vote. It has the support of five Republican cosponsors in the House.

Media:

• Sponsoring Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) Press Release
  
• Natural Gas Intel
  
• Ripon Advance
  
• Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (In Favor)