The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officially ended a controversial effort to revamp its greenhouse gas policy statement in a unanimous order filed Friday.
The move definitively closes the door on one of the commission’s most ambitious and contentious proceedings under former Chair Richard Glick, who had long called for the agency to weigh the climate impacts of new fossil fuel infrastructure in assessing the need for pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals.
It also marks the first major policy move by Chair Mark Christie, who fiercely opposed the policy statement and was selected to lead the agency by President Donald Trump last week.
Glick, who was tapped to lead the commission by President Joe Biden in 2021, led the Democrats’ push to update the agency’s 1999 policy nearly three years ago before demoting the policy statement to a draft just a month later after blowback from the industry and Republican lawmakers.
