Phillips, Moans Bloomberg, Is A Pleasant Surprise at FERC

We’re rapidly warming up to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Chairman Willie Phillips. He’s a unicorn–a Democrat in a position of high power in the D.C. swamp who is actually reasonable (able to be reasoned with). Phillips does not irrationally hate all fossil fuels, as do many of the whack jobs in his party. Because Phillips has voted with the two Republican commissioners to approve a number of new fossil energy pipeline projects, the whack jobs hate him and want him gone.

In the Bloomberg article below, the “reporter” talks about how Phillips is threading the needle, trying to let the whackos know he cares, but at the same time actually doing his job and approving new pipeline and LNG projects. The not-so-subtle message from Bloomberg to Phillips, via this article, is that he better start to get his head right (i.e. oppose new fossil energy projects)…or else.

For months, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission touted work to open up its arcane dockets to stoke more public participation into project reviews and rulemakings as a major prong in its environmental justice efforts.

But the commission’s recent decisions to authorize natural gas projects have infuriated frontline communities, sparked lawsuits, and split the commission’s two Democratic members.

As FERC Chairman Willie Phillips, a Democrat, pledges to advance environmental justice policy, advocates are highlighting a tough reality for regulators: Increased public participation does not equate with outcomes many in the public want.

“What the community is really calling for is a denial of a project,” said Jasmine Jennings, a federal regulatory affairs attorney for We Act For Environmental Justice. “We just haven’t seen it yet. And until we see it, it’s going to be really hard to move the ball forward.”

The stakes are high for Phillips, an acting chair who has to balance dueling goals of transitioning away from fossil fuels without sacrificing the power supply and achieving environmental equity for communities that have traditionally borne the brunt of pollution from the energy sector.

The call for the commission to move beyond public outreach was a common thread in public comments delivered to the commission in recent weeks by environmental groups and advocates that inform an environmental justice policy. Public comments closed this week in a docket created following an environmental justice roundtable held in March.

Those groups have criticized Phillips, who, since taking the gavel in January, has overseen the approval of natural gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals and taken steps to speed up environmental reviews for some projects.

Willie Phillips – FERC Chairman

Lifting Voices

Phillips has garnered praise from gas pipeline developers and the leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

In a congressional hearing this month, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the chair, and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the top Republican, applauded Phillips for approving more gas pipeline capacity in his first four months than in the previous two years combined.

Manchin—who blocked the renomination of Richard Glick, the previous chairman, after criticizing FERC’s move to scrutinize gas project applications—said Phillips had put the commission on a “course correction.” The commission for now is split 2-2 between the political parties.

Phillips, who grew up in Alabama alongside heavy industry and often speaks about environmental justice as a personal matter, is attempting to embed equity into commission policy.

At the roundtable in March, Phillips invited panelists to sit at the commission meeting table, listening and taking notes for several hours. The commission’s Office of Public Participation and senior counsel for environmental justice and equity, both created in 2021, are lowering barriers for the public to weigh in on proceedings, he says.

“I know what it feels like to live in the shadows of heavy industry—I know what it smells like,” Phillips told a gathering of electric transmission line developers in April.

Since he became chairman, “we’ve done more to lift the voices of under-served communities than any commission in the history of FERC,” Phillips added. “Y’all can clap for that.”

LNG Approvals

But Phillips has also said the commission shouldn’t hold up what he believes are needed energy projects.

“We have to be able to build out a system that we need and respect environmental justice communities at the same time,” he said in April. “You can—and we must—do both.”

In April, FERC’s reauthorization of two LNG export terminal projects in Brownsville, Texas—weeks after the environmental justice roundtable—highlight Phillips’ approach to moving energy projects forward while weighing the affects on environmental justice communities.

The commission, responding to an August 2021 court order that the commission explain its environmental justice analysis, reissued certificates for the two proposed projects, Rio Grande LNG and Texas LNG, after analyzing a wider array of communities and finding the terminals would cause no significant impact. The orders included a first-of-its-kind requirement that the developers monitor air quality during a construction period and mitigate any impacts.

“When he says this is something FERC has never done before, I think that he is right,” said Suzanne Mattei, an energy policy analyst and expert on FERC’s pipeline policies for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “It’s just for a very limited time, focusing on very limited contaminants. It’s not going to protect the public over the long term.”

“There’s enormous pressure on the commission out there to move projects,” Mattei added.

Opposing Fossil Fuels

The decisions sparked an outcry from justice advocates and Phillips’ Democratic colleague, Commissioner Allison Clements, who dissented on both orders.

Clements, who championed the Office of Public Participation, wrote the orders ignored hundreds of environmental justice communities and would invite legal challenges. Phillips sided with the commission’s two Republicans to approve the measures by a 3-1 vote.

Clements declined to comment. The office didn’t respond to requests for an interview.

Equity advocates want FERC to meaningfully change its decision-making. We Act, a New York City-based organization that sent a representative to testify at the March roundtable, pressed FERC in comments posted Tuesday to consider cumulative effects of pollution from multiple sources and provide resources to communities to intervene.

Some groups are lobbying the White House to give the gavel to Clements or whomever it plans to nominate this year to replace Glick. The White House named Phillips “acting chairman” in January, but FERC refers to him as chairman and says there is no meaningful distinction because every chairman serves at the pleasure of the president.

The White House should “appoint somebody who has a track record of defending environmental justice and genuinely rolling out renewable energy in communities of color and stopping fossil fuels,” said Jean Su, energy justice director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.