In a 2 to 1 decision, the D.C. Circuit supports Sierra Club and requires that FERC include the secondary effects of increased natural gas consumption in its environmental assessment. Decision appears at odds with three recent cases involving LNG export projects.
On August 22, 2017, Judge Thomas Griffith, on behalf of a divided D.C. Circuit Panel, issued an order (Sierra Club, et al., v. FERC, Nos. 16-1329 and 16-1387) finding that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC or Commission) assessment of the environmental impact of the $3.5 billion, 685-mile long Southeast Market Pipelines Project (Project) was inadequate in that FERC’s environmental impact statement (EIS) did not contain sufficient information on the greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions that would result from burning the gas that the natural gas pipelines will transport.
