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  • Reducing Pollution Without Sacrificing Reliability Cover

    Reducing Pollution Without Sacrificing Reliability

    A Breakdown of the Respective Roles that FERC, EPA, and State Regulators Play to Support a Cleaner & More Reliable Electric Grid

    Multiple federal and state regulators must coordinate their efforts to ensure electric grid reliability, particularly during a period of major transition, and it is important to understand what role each of them plays. This report reviews the respective roles of FERC, RTOs/ISOs, other transmission operators, state public utility commissions, and state environmental regulators. EPA’s duty to reduce GHG emissions that endanger public health and FERC’s duty to steward grid reliability will require them to coordinate each other’s respective expertise as they work with RTOs/ISOs, state regulators, and utilities to implement EPA rules.

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  • Regional Planning for Just and Reasonable Rates: Reforming Gas Pipeline Review Cover

    Regional Planning for Just and Reasonable Rates: Reforming Gas Pipeline Review

    Published in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law

    Natural gas plays an outsized role in the U.S. economy. Under the Natural Gas Act, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) is responsible for overseeing the orderly development of interstate natural gas pipelines, which facilitate the transmission of natural gas throughout the country. FERC can approve the pipeline only if it finds that it is required by the “public convenience and necessity.” Although FERC should consider a range of factors to determine whether a pipeline will serve the public interest, in practice, it looks primarily to the contracts between a developer and its customers for the purchase of pipeline capacity. If a developer can demonstrate that there is a party willing to pay to use its pipeline, FERC rarely asks questions and almost always finds “public” need. This pipeline-by-pipeline approach to natural gas transmission build-out leads to the construction of unnecessary, underused pipelines, which in turn increases ratepayer costs and decreases consumer welfare. Climate change further increases the risk that pipelines will become obsolete as cities and states move toward electrification. Relying on economic theory, legal history, and policy analysis, we make the case in this paper—pulished in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law— for FERC’s adoption of regional gas transmission planning. 

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  • Supplemental Comments to EPA on Reliability & the Proposed GHG Regulations for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants

    In May 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a package of regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. EPA subsequently issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, re-opening its comment period and soliciting comment on whether to include additional mechanisms to address potential reliability issues. In these comments, we explain why EPA has engaged in reasoned rulemaking and developed a robust administrative record comporting with its mandate to reduce power sector pollution. It remains the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) responsibility to ensure reliable bulk-power system (BPS) operations and to use its corresponding tools to address the wider reliability challenges of the clean energy transition, in coordination with other reliability-related entities.

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  • Comments to FERC in Support of Technical Conference on Capacity Accreditation

    Policy Integrity submitted comments to FERC in support of American Clean Power Association’s petition for a technical conference on capacity accreditation. Holding a technical conference would be appropriate because accurate accreditation is becoming increasingly difficult as grids accommodate rapidly changing resource mixes with varying energy and reliability attributes, public policy constraints, and increasing/unprecedented extreme weather events. Moreover, accreditation has become more consequential, as capacity market revenues have grown to a significant share of total market payments. We included several questions that would merit discussion at the technical conference.

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  • Amicus Brief in D.C. Circuit Opposing FERC Pipeline Approval

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recently approved the construction of a new natural gas pipeline that would run through New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The gas capacity this expensive pipeline would provide, most of which will serve New Jersey markets, is unnecessary to meet the demand of New Jersey customers: the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities commissioned a study that demonstrates as much. We submitted an amicus brief in support of petitioners challenging this pipeline. In our brief, we explain that, in approving pipeline applications, FERC has abdicated its statutory responsibility to examine whether a pipeline is truly needed. Instead of determining whether a pipeline would serve the public interest, FERC defers to the assertions of profit-motivated pipeline developers and their customers. FERC's practice of approving needless pipelines is particularly concerning in light of how it regulates the development of electric transmission infrastructure, a related regulatory process. We argue that FERC should have placed greater weight on the rigorous economic study conducted by an expert state agency charged with ensuring safe and adequate gas supply for its residents.

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  • FERC Environmental Justice Roundtable Comments

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the agency responsible for regulating interstate energy infrastructure and markets, is seeking to better incorporate environmental justice into its decision-making. On March 29th, 2023, FERC held its first-ever Environmental Justice Roundtable where Policy Integrity’s Environmental Justice Director, Al Huang, testified and provided suggestions on how the Commission can identify, avoid, and minimize adverse impacts on environmental justice communities. We submitted additional comments to FERC on these issues, as well as on FERC's legal authority to incorporate environmental justice into its permitting decisions.

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  • Comments to FERC on its Backstop Siting Authority

    Following the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) proposed implementing regulations for its authority to site transmission projects that have been rejected or not acted upon by states. We filed comments advising FERC that, to make these determinations and satisfy FERC's obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Commission must consider how proposed transmission projects would affect emissions from power plants. Our comments further recommend improvements to the proposed rule's environmental justice provisions, which also relate to FERC's obligation to ensure that proposed projects are consistent with the public interest.

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  • Policy Brief and Supplemental Comments on the FERC Transmission Planning Rule and the Major Questions Doctrine

    Together with Harvard’s Electricity Law Initiative, we prepared a policy brief and supplemental comments defending the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) proposed rule on transmission planning reform from arguments that the proposal would trigger the major questions doctrine. We review previous transmission planning regulations and orders by FERC to explain that the major questions doctrine does not apply because the proposed rule is neither unheralded nor transformative.

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  • Supplemental Comments Addressing Impact of West Virginia v. EPA on FERC’s Proposed Policy Statements for Natural Gas Infrastructure

    In February, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed two policy statements that called for the consideration of climate impacts in pipeline certificate proceedings. In April, we filed two comments letters on these proposed policy statements, including one letter filed jointly with over two dozen legal scholars rebutting arguments that the Commission lacks authority to consider climate effects in its oversight of natural gas infrastructure under the Natural Gas Act and, relatedly, that the proposed policy statements implicate the major questions doctrine. Today, we submitted supplemental comments rebutting arguments that the Supreme Court’s recent decision on the major questions doctrine in West Virginia v. EPA somehow affects the Commission’s ability to finalize its proposed policy statements.

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  • Comments to FERC on Transmission NOPR

    We submitted comments to FERC providing recommendations for how it can clarify and improve reforms proposed in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing transmission planning and cost allocation. If finalized, the rulemaking would require planning entities to undertake long-term transmission planning. Our comments recommend that FERC clarify (at a high level) what it means to undertake long-term planning over a 20-year time horizon. We also recommend more specific improvements that can be made, including providing minimum uniform requirements on model specifications and scenario planning based on best practices; instituting administrative guardrails to protect transmission customers from excessive costs if the Commission moves forward with its proposed Right of First Refusal; and mandating a uniform set of core benefits that all planners must consider.

    We also submitted reply comments in the proceeding to underscore two points. In response to commenters that argued the Commission should reconsider its proposal in light of the level of uncertainty surrounding the future, we argue that it is future uncertainty that necessitates the long-term scenario planning contemplated by the rule. Such proactive transmission planning will allow planners to prepare for and react to changing circumstances and ensure a reliable and resilient grid in the face of uncertainty. Additionally, our reply comments reaffirm previous recommendations that the Commission should require planners to use a standardized cost-benefit analysis that properly accounts for societal benefits of new transmission.

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