December 2024, Vol. 251, No. 12
Government
Court Temporarily Halts Construction of Tennessee Pipeline
By Stephen Barlas, Contributing Editor, Washington, D.C.
(P&GJ) — Environmental opposition continues to bedevil proposed pipeline projects, both at the state and federal level, and Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company’s Cumberland Pipeline project is the latest poster child.
The project suffered a setback at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit (it sits in Cincinnati, Ohio) and a renewed challenge in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
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The Appeals Court in Tennessee paused the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s order issuing a water quality certification and the construction permit from the both Tennessee and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
That court sounded less than certain that its concerns would be a long-term problem for the 32-mile Cumberland pipeline, which will bring natural gas to a Tennessee Valley Authority electricity-generating facility switching out of coal.
The court wrote in its decision: “In granting these stay requests, we are mindful that further consideration by the court may yield additional insights which cast doubt on our initial view. Accordingly, to provide sufficient time for this court to consider the merits of these petitions, we grant Petitioners’ motions for stay pending review.”
Eric Hilt, spokesman for at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is one of the environmental groups opposed to the Cumberland project, said there will also be challenges involving FERC approval under Sections 401 and 404 of the Clean Water Act.
“At the moment, the next steps are all legal … The 6th Circuit will hear oral argument in the 401 and 404 cases in December,” he said.
Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) Senior Attorney Jamie Whitlock said, “These water permits for the pipeline were rubber-stamped and ignore the long-lasting harm construction of this pipeline will cause.”
Kinder Morgan said of the 6th Circuit’s decision that the company does not agree with the court’s temporary stay and is evaluating its options to ensure the project can be built in a timely manner.
“TGP’s project is critical to support the retirement and conversion of coal-fired power generation in Tennessee to natural gas-fired power generation, which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded will result in a net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at the state and national levels,” Kinder Morgan said.
The environmentalists’ case at the Washington Federal Appeals Court, filed in April 2024, has to do with allegations that the FERC did not consider all allegedly negative climate change issues when approving the project in January 2024. More specifically, the court continued its thread from recent past decisions refusing to tote up the impact of greenhouse gas emissions because it did not have an agreed-up method for doing so.
That refusal did not sit well with environmentalists who have repeatedly challenged that contention in a number of recent projects both at the commission and the D.C. Appeals Court, with generally limit amounts of success, as was the case here.
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