An appeals court did not seem likely to block the expansion of a liquefied natural gas import facility in Puerto Rico, even though it lacks final approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
During a hearing Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit questioned what action it could take in the case challenging a 220-foot pipeline connected to an existing LNG facility, since FERC had not yet issued an authorization for the court to revoke.
The project was pushed ahead by the federal government without FERC approval as part of a broader effort to quickly strengthen Puerto Rico’s electric grid, which has suffered repeated hurricane damage within the last decade.
“Any remedy short of removing that pipeline is not a remedy at all,” said Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg to an attorney for the project’s challengers. “Short of that you get nothing, that is what we cannot order.”
