Federal regulators issued a handful of gas-related orders Thursday that clear the path for new pipeline and energy infrastructure in the Midwest and along the Gulf Coast.
The decisions from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission come as the agency has taken steps to remove barriers to building gas pipelines, including granting a one-year waiver to a FERC rule that precludes construction activities while the agency considers rehearing requests.
FERC Chair Mark Christie, a Republican, said the commission opted to waive Order 871 for a year because it’d become “a tool to get automatic stay on a project during rehearing process.”
“It had become a barrier to proceeding with construction,” Christie said, noting it doesn’t end the rehearing process and adding it had become “misused.”
