We submitted joint comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on its environmental assessment of the Jordan Cove natural gas exports project in Oregon. FERC failed to provide a meaningful analysis of the pipeline’s climate effects.
The draft environmental impact statement for the project estimates that operation of the Jordan Cove pipeline and compressor station will produce over two million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions each year. FERC, however, chose not to use the social cost of greenhouse gas metric to gauge the impact of those emissions, which will cause well over a hundred million dollars in property damage, premature death, and other effects. Our comments emphasize FERC’s obligation to assess the real-world climate impacts of the project’s direct, upstream, and downstream emissions. The social cost of greenhouse gas methodology is the best available tool for weighing the significance of climate impacts.