Date: December 20, 2024
To: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Docket No. CP25-10-000
Re: Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company’s Application Request to Forgo Environmental Impact Statement for Southeast Supply Enhancement Project
The undersigned organizations submit the following comments in response to Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC (“Transco” or the “Company’s”) request for a certificate of public convenience and necessity (the “Application”) from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the “Commission”) to build and operate its Southeast Supply Enhancement Project (SSEP or the “Project”).[1] The Project, which spans five states, would facilitate the transport of an additional 1,596,900 dekatherms per day (Dth/d) in the southeastern United States, include installation of 54.9 miles of new, large-diameter pipe, and make substantial horsepower increases at four compressor stations in North Carolina and Virginia.[2]
Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), agencies must issue an environmental impact statement (EIS) with respect to a proposed agency action that “has a reasonably foreseeable significant effect on the quality of the human environment.”[3] Reasonably foreseeable “effect[s]” include direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts, which include “effects on the environment that result from the incremental effects of the action when added to the effects of other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions regardless of what agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person undertakes such other actions.”[4] An EIS addresses, among other things, the adverse environmental impacts of a proposal, and weighs a reasonable range of alternatives that could meet the proposal’s purpose and need at a lower environmental cost.[5] Completing an EIS for projects with reasonably foreseeable significant effects on the environment is necessary for agencies to meet their obligation under NEPA to “take a hard look at the environmental consequences before taking a major action.”[6]
This Project represents one of the largest expansions in natural gas capacity in decades. And yet, in its Application, Transco states that the Project “will not have a significant impact on human health or the environment,” suggesting that the Commission need not prepare an EIS for this Project as part of its NEPA review.[7]
Transco is legally and factually incorrect. Under every metric—including project footprint, horsepower upgrades to compressor stations, and capacity increase—the Project promises significant environmental impacts that demand a hard look under NEPA through a complete EIS, including a fulsome analysis of alternatives and need.[8] Moreover, if FERC fails to complete an EIS for this Project, it would make a massive departure from the past policy and practice of the Commission for projects of this magnitude, and an unlawful one. Agencies may not depart from past practice sub silentio, and must show good reasons for their new policy.[9] The Commission has consistently completed EISs for projects a fraction of the size of the Project.[10] It would be arbitrary and capricious to depart from that policy and practice here.
For reasons described in these comments, the Commission must disregard Transco’s self-serving assertion, follow its own consistent policy and practice, and prepare an EIS that provides an honest accounting of the far-reaching environmental consequences of the proposed Project.
I. The potential impacts from the Project’s proposed new, large-diameter pipe are significant and demand further study and analysis.
Transco intends to install 54.9 miles of new, large-diameter pipe for the Project: 30.8 miles of 42-inch-diameter pipe from Pittsylvania County, Virginia to Rockingham County, North Carolina, and 24.1 miles of 42-inch-diameter pipe in Guilford, Forsyth, and Davidson Counties, North Carolina.[11] According to the Commission’s prior practice, this amount of new pipe alone is a significant impact and triggers the need for an EIS.[12]
In recent years, FERC has found a need to prepare EISs for project proposals including anywhere from 0 to 85 miles of new pipeline, almost always with substantially lower associated capacity increases than the Project. For example, FERC completed an EIS for the Northern Lights 2023 Expansion Project, which included 9.8 miles of pipeline installation, no compressor station actions, and a 50,889 Dth/d increase in capacity.[13] Similarly, the Commission issued an EIS for the Cumberland Project, which proposed 32 miles of 30-inch-diameter pipe, no compressor station modifications, and an increase in capacity of 245,040 Dth/d.[14] Indeed, in 2021, FERC prepared an EIS for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Restoration Project and Supply Header Restoration Project—a plan for 43.1 miles of previously installed pipeline to be left in the ground and disturbed sites to be allegedly remediated.[15] To recognize the potential for significant environmental effects in those proposals but deny it for this Project would be an arbitrary and capricious departure from FERC’s established policy.
That departure would be even more irrational given the specifics of this Project, which make clear the magnitude of its environmental impacts. Construction of the pipeline, compressor stations, and associated facilities would impact nearly 1,500 acres of land,[16] including more than 42 acres of wetlands,[17] while operation of the pipeline would permanently disturb more than 364 acres along the right-of-way.[18] The large-diameter pipe would make more than 100 individual waterbody crossings across sixteen watersheds,[19] including one major crossing of the Dan River in North Carolina that would span 230 feet.[20]
Transco attempts to downplay the impacts of installing this substantial stretch of large-diameter pipe via counterfactual, suggesting that the Project’s impacts would be greater if the Company were not co-locating so much of the new pipe alongside its existing mainline system.[21] As an initial matter, even if co-location were to reduce the potential for significant impacts, it does not follow that the Project’s impacts are therefore not significant. As the above discussion shows, they are. But co-location also carries its own risks. Gas pipelines operate under high pressure and can sometimes rupture, catch fire, and explode, causing extensive local damage. In scoping comments, the Pipeline Safety Trust raised concerns that when multiple high-pressure pipes are laid next to one another, the potential impact radius of such an event—the so-called “blast zone”—could be exacerbated, putting more landowners and communities at risk.[22]
Beyond co-location with its own pipes, Transco has neither acknowledged nor reckoned with the cumulative impacts of the new pipe, which include how its proposed path will interact with other natural gas proposals before FERC, most prominently the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate Expansion Project (“MVP Southgate”).[23] Transco’s alignment sheets do not currently depict the path of MVP Southgate, despite the potential for the two projects to share rights-of-way and even intersect.
Because the Company has not done its due diligence to assess the dangers of co-locating multiple large-diameter, high-pressure pipelines, and based on the many other impacts and reasons listed above, the Commission must independently investigate those risks and required mitigation measures in a full EIS. To move forward on a proposal with this substantial of a footprint absent that analysis would be a violation of FERC’s obligations under NEPA.
II. The Commission must take a hard look at air quality impacts associated with the Project’s proposed compressor station modifications.
The Commission has consistently completed EISs for projects a fraction of the size of SSEP, including on the metric of compressor station modifications alone.[24] For example, the Enhancement by Compression Project in 2021 entailed a total capacity increase of 48,000 HP spread across four existing compressor stations.[25] SSEP, as described in Transco’s Application, would increase capacity at its gas-powered compressor stations alone by 107,375 HP.[26] Electric motor-driven stations would increase capacity by a total of 165,000 HP.[27] If FERC were to fail to complete an EIS, it would need to not only rationally explain its reasons for departing from well-established past practice but also show that the proposed project would have no reasonably foreseeable significant effects on the environment. Neither FERC nor Transco can credibly establish the latter.
The gas capacity increase Transco plans is particularly salient, since it would produce a steep increase in the emissions of harmful air pollution, a fact that by itself indicates a “reasonably foreseeable significant effect” on the surrounding communities.[28] Compressor Stations 150 and 155 produce pollutants—the emissions of which this Project would increase—that are well known to cause harm to human health. Nitrogen dioxide, for example, can exacerbate respiratory diseases such as asthma.[29] VOCs can cause difficulty breathing and damage to the central nervous system.[30] VOCs and NOx react together to produce ozone, which can also inflame and damage the airways, make the lungs more susceptible to infection, exacerbate lung diseases, and cause more frequent asthma attacks.[31] And research has shown that there is no evidence of any safe level of PM2.5.[32]
While Transco states that criteria pollutant impacts are anticipated to fall below Significant Impact Levels,[33] this only allows Transco to opt out of further analysis for determining compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). As SELC and Sierra Club pointed out in scoping comments, compliance with the NAAQS is not an appropriate indicator of impacts to local public health.[34] The EPA, courts, and Congress have all recognized that criteria pollutants may cause harm at levels below the NAAQS and may have disproportionate adverse effects on those living closest to the source of pollution.[35] Indeed, the Commission itself has recognized that “NAAQS attainment alone may not ensure that there is no localized harm to public health.”[36] In short, compliance with the Clean Air Act does not ensure that there would not be significant direct and indirect effects to air quality that require agency analysis under NEPA.
Additionally, the “reasonably foreseeable impacts” that FERC must consider also include cumulative effects, which are “effects on the environment that result from the incremental effects of the action when added to the effects of other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions regardless of what agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person undertakes such other actions” and “can result from actions with individually minor but collectively significant effects taking place over a period of time.”[37] As SELC and Sierra Club noted in scoping comments, Compressor Stations 150 and 155 are both located near areas with, relative to the rest of the state, extremely high burdens of PM2.5, ozone, toxic releases to air, and air toxics cancer risk, with EJ index values in some cases exceeding the 80th and 90th percentiles.[38] In addition, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Environmental Justice Index indicates that the area immediately across the street from Compressor Station 155 falls in the 90th percentile nationally for civilians with disabilities and has a high estimated prevalence of asthma.[39] Compressor Station 150 is near an area that falls in the 81st percentile nationally for air toxics cancer risk.[40] While Transco concedes that “increased emissions may affect local air quality within EJ communities near Compressor Stations 150 and 155,” neither Resource Report No. 9 (Air and Noise Quality) nor Resource Report No. 5 (Socioeconomics) contains any analysis or discussion to support Transco’s conclusion that “the changes to air quality are not expected to represent an adverse and disproportionate impact.”[41] Given the pre-existing burdens of both disease and pollution in the areas near Compressor Stations 150 and 155, it is reasonably foreseeable that the increase in air pollution from the Project would have a significant effect on human health, and FERC must complete its own independent analysis of that effect in an EIS.[42]
III. The Project’s overall capacity increase will result in hundreds of millions of metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, an unquestionably significant impact.
The proposed project would enable Transco to provide 1,596,900 Dth/d of incremental firm transportation. According to Transco, combusting that amount of gas would result in downstream emissions of 30,950,000 metric tons per year (tpy) of CO2e— which means this one project represents approximately 0.52% of the entire nation’s total CO2e emissions each year.[43] For context, 30.95 million metric tpy of CO2e is equivalent to the emissions from 7,366,156 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year, or eight coal-burning power plants in one year.[44]
Moreover, combustion of the 1,000,000 Dth/d slated for Duke Energy alone would generate 19,381,301.2 tpy of CO2e—more than 70 percent of what North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality projected that the total emissions from all electricity generation in the state would be by 2030.[45] Based on the state-wide emissions reduction target set by Governor Roy Cooper in 2022,[46] this single Project would represent more than a quarter (as much as 26.3 percent) of the state’s net emissions across all sectors by 2030.[47] Under a state law requiring reductions in carbon emissions from Duke Energy, carbon emissions from electricity generation must be reduced 70 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 (“Interim Target”).[48] Combustion emissions from this Project could claim as much as 78 percent of the sector’s carbon budget just five years from now.[49] Although the North Carolina Utilities Commission has provisionally extended Duke’s deadline for compliance with that requirement in response to increasing demand for electricity, Duke is still required to “pursue all reasonable steps to achieve the Interim Target by the earliest possible date,”[50] and the statute’s ultimate requirement of carbon neutrality by the year 2050 remains firmly in place.[51]
This massive increase in capacity, and thus in direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, unquestionably warrants an EIS.[52] For example, FERC prepared an EIS for Transco’s Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project, which would enable Transco to provide an incremental 829,400 Dth/day of gas.[53] With regard to that project, which can transport only about 52 percent of the volume of gas that SSEP would be able to transport, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that “the Commission’s own estimates anticipate that the [REAE] Project will spur enormous GHG emissions and associated costs.”[54]
In 2022, FERC issued an interim policy statement stating that 1) “[f]or purposes of assessing the appropriate level of NEPA review, Commission staff will apply the 100% utilization or ‘full burn’ rate for the proposed project’s emissions,” and 2) “Commission staff will proceed with the preparation of an EIS, if the proposed project may result in 100,000 metric tons per year of CO2e or more.”[55] Although FERC later changed the interim policy statement to draft status,[56] that action did not negate the rationale behind the Commission’s conclusion that a 100,000 metric tpy threshold “is appropriate because it captures Commission projects that may result in incremental GHG emissions that may have a significant effect upon the human environment.”[57] Nor did it undermine the Commission’s reasoning that “[t]his approach is consistent with the overall goal of NEPA to require a ‘hard look’ at adverse environmental impacts and assess whether those can be minimized or avoided.”[58]
For SSEP, Transco estimates the Project’s operational potential to emit to be 431,180 metric tpy of CO2e and the full-burn downstream emissions to be 30.95 million metric tpy.[59] Those emissions are more than 300 times higher than the significance threshold that FERC established in the interim guidance. SSEP’s GHG emissions thus register well above any significance threshold that FERC could reasonably adopt. Moreover, as the D.C. Circuit concluded for Transco’s REAE pipeline—which proposed approximately half the capacity increase of SSEP—the Project would “spur . . . enormous costs.”[60] Using the EPA estimates for the social cost of carbon,[61] the full-burn downstream emissions from the Project would create more than $122 billion worth of damages over the next twenty years.[62] Accordingly, “[h]owever the Commission’s approach to the significance analysis evolves, the reasonably foreseeable GHG emissions associated with this project” should be categorized as significant, and an EIS is required.[63]
IV. Reasonable alternatives to the Project cannot be adequately considered based on the Application and must be weighed through EIS.
Finally, an EIS is required for the Project so that the Commission can adequately scrutinize the need for Transco’s requested capacity increase, including by performing an independent analysis of reasonable alternatives. Transco has not engaged in any rigorous analysis to support its assertion that the regional energy demands that the proposed Project would serve cannot and will not be met by less environmentally-damaging alternatives, including renewables and energy storage.[64] As SELC and Sierra Club noted in Scoping Comments, the Commission has evaluated non-gas energy alternatives and other forms of energy in its NEPA documents in the past.[65] This Project’s capacity increase outstrips nearly every other proposal to appear on the Commission’s docket in recent years.[66]
Failing to examine those alternatives or the purported need for the Project would not only depart from prior practice, but also lay the foundation for an arbitrary and capricious conclusion about the availability of reasonable, environmentally-preferable alternatives to serve regional energy needs.[67] Under NEPA, FERC must “to the fullest extent possible . . . consider alternatives to its actions which would reduce environmental damage.”[68] Indeed, that alternatives analysis forms the heart of FERC’s NEPA inquiry.[69] FERC cannot meet its mandate under NEPA by relying on Transco’s conclusory statements about renewable energy alternatives. The Commission must independently evaluate those alternatives by completing a full EIS.
V. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Commission should ignore Transco’s insistence that the Project will not cause significant effects on the human environment, follow its own well-established practice and policy for meeting its legal mandate, and complete the full EIS that any project of this scale requires under NEPA.
Sincerely,
198 Methods
350 Bay Area Action
350 Triangle
7 Directions of Service
Alleghany Blue Ridge Alliance
Animals Are Sentient Beings, Inc.
Artivism Virginia
Better Path Coalition
Beyond Extreme Energy
Carolina Migrant Network
Center for Biological Diversity
Center for Oil and Gas Organizing
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Charlotte Mecklenburg NAACP Environmental Justice Committee
Citizens Caring for the Future
Clean AIRE North Carolina
Clean Water for North Carolina
Climate Conversation Brazoria County
Climate Hawks Vote
Coastal Watch Association
Common Defense
Concerned Health Professionals of Pennsylvania
Democracy Out Loud
Democratic Socialists of America - Knoxville, TN
Don't Waste Arizona
Earth Ethics, Inc.
Eno River Unitation Universalist Fellowship
Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Earth Action Group
etc artist collective & community center
Fayetteville Police Accountability Community Task Force
Food and Water Watch
Friends of Buckingham
Good Stewards of Rockingham
Habitat Recovery Project
Haw River Assembly
Healthy Gulf
Institute for Policy Studies Climate Policy Program
Long Island Progressive Coalition
Missing Murdered Indigenous Women Coalition of NC
Moms Clean Air Force
Movement Rights
NC Climate Justice Collective
NC Council of Churches
NC Environmental Justice Network
NC Interfaith Power and Light
National Wildlife Federation
Natural Resources Defense Council
Nia Impact Capital
North American Climate, Conservation and Environment (NACCE)
North Carolina Black Alliance
North Carolina League of Conservation Voters
North County Earth Action
Oil and Gas Action Network
Oil Change International
Pastor Robert Leak III
Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light
Piedmont Environmental Alliance
Pipeline Safety Trust
Pittsylvania County Branch NAACP
Preserve Giles County
Property Rights and Pipeline Center
Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights
Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR)
Putnam Progressives
Raging Grannies
Rainforest Action Network
Rachel Carson Council
Resource Renewal Institute
Rogue Climate
Sierra Club
Social Eco Education (SEE)
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Southern Environmental Law Center
Stand.earth
Sunrise Movement Durham
Sunrise UVA
Swannanoa Valley Tree Alliance
Terra Advocati
Texas Campaign for the Environment
Texas Permian Future Generations
The Enviro Show
Third Act North Carolina
Third Act Richmond
Third Act Texas
Turtle Island Restoration Network
Vessel Project of Louisiana
Virginia Conservation Network
Vote Climate
Waterspirit
Wild Virginia
Women Leading 4 Wellness and Justice
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom -Triangle Branch
Yadkin Riverkeeper
[1] Abbreviated Application for Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity and For Order Permitting and Approving Abandonment of Facilities (Southeast Supply Enhancement Project), Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, L.L.C., Docket No. CP25-10-000, Accession No. 20241029-5076 at 17–18 (Oct. 28, 2024) [hereinafter “Application”].
[2] Id. at 2, 13–15.
[3] 42 U.S.C.A. § 4336(b)(1) (2023); accord 40 C.F.R. § 1502.3.
[4] 40 C.F.R. § 1508.1(i) (2024).
[5] 42 U.S.C. § 4332(C)(iii); 40 C.F.R. § 1500.2(e). See also N. J. Conservation Found. v. FERC, 111 F.4th 42, 51 (D.C. Cir. 2024).
[6] Ctr. For Biological Diversity v. FERC, 67 F.4th 1176, 1181 (D.C. Cir. 2023).
[7] Application at 17-18.
[8] 42 U.S.C.A. § 4336(b)(1) (2023); accord 40 C.F.R. § 1502.3.
[9] See F.C.C. v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 513-17 (2009) (discussing imposition of a new policy on findings of indecency in place of past practice that rested only on staff rulings and Commission dicta).
[10] See App. A, PROPOSALS FOR WHICH FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENTS ISSUED FROM FERC, 2022–2023 [hereinafter “App. A”].
[11] Application at 13.
[12] See App. A (charting increases in pipe, capacity, and compressor station horsepower associated with projects that have received Final EISs from FERC in 2023, 2022, and late 2021).
[13] Final Environmental Impact Statement for Northern Lights 2023 Expansion Project, Northern Natural Gas Company, Docket No. CP22-138-000, Accession No. 20230310-3001 (Mar. 2023).
[14] Final Environmental Impact Statement for Cumberland Project, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC, Docket No. CP22-493-000, Accession No. 20230630-3003 (June 2023).
[15] Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Restoration Project and Supply Header Restoration Project, Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC & Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage, Inc., Docket Nos. CP15-554-009 & CP15-555-007, Accession No. 20211217-3010 (Dec. 2021).
[16] Resource Report No. 3: Fish, Wildlife, and Vegetation at 3-37, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, L.L.C., Docket No. CP25-10-000, Accession No. 20241029-5076 (Oct. 28, 2024) [hereinafter “Resource Report 3”].
[17] Resource Report No. 2: Water Use and Quality at 2-87–2-96, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, L.L.C., Docket No. CP25-10-000, Accession No. 20241029-5076 (Oct. 28, 2024) [hereinafter “Resource Report 3”].
[18] Resource Report 3 at 3-37.
[19] Resource Report 2 at 2-30–2-35; Id. at 2-38–2-43.
[20] Resource Report 2 at 2-32.
[21] Resource Report 1: General Project Description at 1-6–7, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, L.L.C., Docket No. CP25-10-000, Accession No. 20241029-5076 (Oct. 28, 2024).
[22] See Comments of Pipeline Safety Trust on Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC, Docket No. PF24-2-000, Accession No. 20240702-5027, at 1–2 (July 1, 2024).
[23] See, e.g., Attachment B Alignment Sheets, Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC [Southgate Project] Supplemental Information under CP19-14, Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC, Docket No. CP19-14-000, Accession No. 20200421-5237 (Apr. 21, 2020) (identifying points where MVP Southgate would occupy Transco’s existing rights of way in the same counties and along many of the same routes impacted by the Project).
[24] See App. A.
[25] See Enhancement by Compression Project Final Environmental Impact Statement at 1–2, Iroquois Gas Transmission System, L.P., Docket No. CP20-48-000, Accession No. 20211112-3011 (Nov. 12, 2021).
[26] See Resource Report No. 9: Air and Noise Quality at 9-2, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, L.L.C., Docket No. CP25-10-000, Accession No. 20241029-5076 (Oct. 28, 2024) [hereinafter “Resource Report 9”].
[27] See Application at 13–14.
[28] 42 U.S.C.A. § 4336(b)(1) (2023).
[29] See Comments of Southern Environmental Law Center et al. re the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project under PF24-2-000 at 28–29, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, L.L.C., Docket No. PF24-2-000, Accession No. 20240705-5097 (July 5, 2024) (citing Basic Information about NO2, EPA, https://www.epa.gov/no2-pollution/basic-information-about-no2 (last visited May 31, 2024)) [hereinafter “Scoping Comments”].
[30] See Scoping Comments at 29 (citing Volatile Organic Compounds, Am. Lung Ass’n, https://www.lung.org/clean-air/indoor-air/indoor-air-pollutants/volatile-organic-compounds (last visited May 31, 2024)).
[31] See Scoping Comments at 29 (citing Health Effects of Ozone Pollution, EPA, https://www.epa.gov/ground-level-ozone-pollution/health-effects-ozone-pollution (last visited June 20, 2024)).
[32] See Scoping Comments at 29 (citing George Thurston, Sc.D., In the Matter of the Proposed Lambert Compressor Station 13, 34–35 (Apr. 9, 2021)).
[33] Resource Report No. 5: Socioeconomics at 5-44, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, L.L.C., Docket No. CP25-10-000, Accession No. 20241029-5076 (Oct. 28, 2024) [hereinafter “Resource Report 5”]; Resource Report 9 at 9-44.
[34] Scoping Comments at 30.
[35] See Friends of Buckingham v. State Air Pollution Control Bd., 947 F.3d 68, 92–93 (4th Cir. 2020) (finding that by relying on state and national air quality standards, the Board “failed to grapple with the likelihood that those living closest to the Compressor Station . . . will be affected more than those living in other parts of the same county. . . [T]he Board’s failure to consider the disproportionate impact on those closest to the Compressor Station resulted in a flawed analysis.”); LaFleur v. Whitman, 300 F.3d 256, 270 (2d Cir. 2002) (“Congress has recognized that there are potentially adverse [e]ffects from air pollution at levels below the NAAQS”); EPA, EXTERNAL CIVIL RIGHTS COMPLIANCE OFFICE, TOOLKIT 12–13 (2017) (“The fact that the area is designated as in attainment with the NAAQS and that the recent permitting record shows that emissions from the facility would not cause a violation of the NAAQS would be insufficient by themselves to find that no adverse impacts are occurring for purposes of Title VI and other federal civil rights laws.”).
[36] See Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co., LLC, Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC, 185 FERC ¶ 61,130, at P 129 (Nov. 16, 2023).
[37] 40 C.F.R. § 1508.1(i)(3) (2024).
[38] Scoping Comments at 19–20.
[39] The CDC’s Environmental Justice Index (EJI) “scores census tracts using a percentile ranking which represents the proportion of tracts that experience cumulative impacts of environmental burden and injustice equal to or lower than a tract of interest. For example, an EJI ranking of 0.85 signifies that 85% of tracts in the nation likely experience less severe cumulative impacts on health and well-being than the tract of interest, and that 15% or tracts in the nation likely experience more severe cumulative impacts from environmental burden.” Environmental Justice Index (EJI) Explorer, Ctr. for Disease Control & Prevention, https://onemap.cdc.gov/portal/apps/sites/#/eji-explorer (search for 650 Becky Hill Road, Lexington, NC 27295) (last visited Nov. 14, 2024).
[40] Id. (search for 236 Transco Road, Mooresville, NC 28117).
[41] Resource Report 5 at 5-44.
[42] See Healthy Gulf v. FERC, 107 F.4th 1033, 1043-44 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (stating that relying on NAAQS compliance to demonstrate a Project’s significance or insignificance “eviscerate[s] the purpose behind requiring a distinct cumulative effects analysis in the first place, which is to account for ‘collectively significant’ environmental impacts that may result from ‘individually minor’ actions.”).
[43] Resource Report 9 at 9-51 & n.8.
[44] Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator, U.S. EPA, https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator (last visited Dec. 3, 2024).
[45] North Carolina Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2050), N.C. Dep’t of Env’t Quality 4 (2024) https://edocs.deq.nc.gov/AirQuality/DocView.aspx?id=468498&dbid=0&repo=AirQuality&cr= (estimating future emissions based on generation from all facilities in North Carolina, and for Duke Energy specifically, in reliance on the proposed Carbon Plan and Integrated Resource Plan Duke filed with the North Carolina Utilities Commissions in August, 2023) [hereinafter “NC GHG Inventory”].
[46] N.C. Exec. Order No. 246: North Carolina Transformation To A Clean Equitable Economy, State of North Carolina (Jan. 7, 2022) https://governor.nc.gov/media/2907/open.
[47] NC GHG Inventory at 4 (pinpointing historic greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 at 147.34 million metric tpy on net).
[48] N.C. Gen Stat. § 62-110.9 (2021).
[49] Calculation based on the NC GHG Inventory historical data on emissions from electricity generation in 2005, including from imported electricity.
[50] Order Accepting Stipulation, Granting Partial Waiver of Commission Rule R8-60A(d)(4), and Providing Further Direction for Future Planning at 83, 85, Docket No. E-100, Sub. 190 (Nov. 1, 2024) https://starw1.ncuc.gov/ncuc/ViewFile.aspx?Id=cfc6d586-12e4-447f-a552-757d6e73c30e.
[51] N.C. Gen Stat. § 62-110.9.
[52] See App. A.
[53] Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Regional Energy Access Expansion Project at 1, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC, Docket No. CP21-94-000, Accession No. 20220729-3005 (July 2022).
[54] N.J. Conservation Found., 111 F.4th at 54 (D.C. Cir. 2024).
[55] Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Nat. Gas Infrastructure Project Reviews, 178 FERC ¶ 61,108, at P 3 (2022) (“Interim Policy Statement”).
[56] Certification of New Interstate Nat. Gas Facilities, 178 FERC ¶ 61,197, at P 2 (2022).
[57] Interim Policy Statement at P 3 (footnote omitted). See also id. at P 81 (footnote omitted) (“A project with estimated emissions of 100,000 metric tons per year of CO2e or greater will be presumed to have a significant effect, unless record evidence refutes that presumption.”).
[58] Interim Policy Statement at P 3 (citing 42 U.S.C. 4331(a); 4332(c)).
[59] Resource Report No. 9 at 9-48, 9-51.
[60] N.J. Conservation Found., 111 F.4th at 54. See also id. at 55 (noting that “the Commission calculated that the [REAE] Project’s GHG emissions will impose social costs of $46 billion”).
[61] Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases: Estimates Incorporating Recent Scientific Advances, EPA (Nov. 2023), https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-12/epa_scghg_2023_report_final.pdf.
[62] Calculated using the Institute for Policy Integrity social cost of carbon calculator for years 2027 – 2047, applying a discount rate of 2%. Calculating the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, Institute for Policy Integrity, https://costofcarbon.org/calculator (last visited Nov. 18, 2024).
[63] N. Nat. Gas Co., 174 FERC ¶ 61,189, 61,729 (2021).
[64] Resource Report No. 10: Alternatives at 10-5, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, L.L.C., Docket No. CP25-10-000, Accession No. 20241029-5076 (Oct. 28, 2024).
[65] See Scoping Comments at 7–8.
[66] See App. A.
[67] See, e.g., Simmons v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 120 F.3d 664, 670 (7th Cir. 1997).
[68] Calvert Cliffs' Coordinating Comm., Inc. v. U. S. Atomic Energy Comm'n, 449 F.2d 1109, 1128 (D.C. Cir. 1971).
[69] Cong. Rsch. Serv., R47205, Judicial Review and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 16 (2022), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47205 (“Courts and CEQ often refer to this requirement as the ‘heart’ of the environmental review.”).