StateImpact reported that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently approved an addition to the interstate Transco pipeline that will transport Marcellus shale gas to New Jersey, where there is a high demand. The approval comes after several other pipeline expansions to New York and New England were recently approved. The Leidy Southeast line will total approximately 30 miles in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and is scheduled to be completed by late 2015.
According to StateImpact and the Pike County Courier, on March 22, 2013, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit to Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company (TGPC) for wetland, stream, and river crossings associated with its Northeast Upgrade Project. Despite opposition from environmental groups and local citizens, regulators at the Army Corps’ Philadelphia District determined that the proposed work is not contrary to the public interest.
The Project aims to increase the capacity on TGPC’s Line 300 by constructing 40 miles of new pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and modifying four compressor stations. As indicated in a March 2011 Economic Report by Rutgers University, the Project will create 1,100 job years, $37.8M in income for local labor, and $51.4M in GDP in Pennsylvania, as well as $12.2M in federal tax revenues, $1.9M in state tax revenues, and $2.1M in local tax revenues. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the Project in May 2012. FERC is the lead federal agency for the Project.
Bloomberg News is reporting that New York Supreme Court Judge Eileen A. Rakower has denied a petition to block Spectra Energy Corporation’s New Jersey-New York Expansion Project. According to Bloomberg, Judge Rakower ruled that federal law precludes her from hearing the petition, which was filed by Sane Energy Project and other environmental groups. Spectra Energy’s project, which is slated for completion in November 2013, includes the installation of approximately 16 miles of new pipeline and five miles of replacement pipeline in northern New Jersey and southern New York, including Manhattan.
On January 11, 2013, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order denying a joint request by three environmental groups to delay the construction of Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, L.L.C.’s (TGP) Northeast Upgrade Project in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. FERC found that the environmental groups had not shown that they would be irreparably harmed by allowing the Project to go forward, and that the agency had complied with the National Environmental Policy Act in considering the environmental impacts of the Project. According to a January 10, 2013 press release, two of the environmental groups have filed a separate challenge to FERC’s approvals of the Project in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Additionally, as noted in a previous post, TGP recently filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block an administrative challenge to the Project before Pennsylvania’s Environmental Hearing Board.
A one-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in New Jersey ended yesterday, the Star-Ledger reports. Gas resources are projected to be limited in New Jersey, and a New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokesman reported that no applications or interest from exploration and production companies had been received. However, anti-fracking advocates have pushed for New Jersey to extend the moratium.