Advocacy groups are taking federal energy regulators to court over the resurrection of a canceled gas pipeline expansion in the Northeast.
In a lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Washington, Central Jersey Safe Energy Coalition, the Natural Resource Defense Council and others claim the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission improperly reissued a certificate for the pipeline in September — after developers last year informed FERC that it could not meet a deadline to put the project in service.
“FERC has zero legal authority to resurrect this dead and abandoned project,” said Gillian Giannetti, senior attorney at NRDC, in a statement after the groups filed their case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The nearly 37-mile Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline is designed to carry gas from Pennsylvania through New Jersey to New York and expands Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co.’s existing system. Transco had asked FERC to expedite reissuance of the certificate this spring, citing President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at speeding up fossil fuel projects.
