Northern Access Pipeline Needs to Stop Playing Games with NY

National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) and its pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline have worked on a plan to build the Northern Access Pipeline since 2016. Northern Access is a 97-mile project from McKean County in Pennsylvania into and through Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Erie counties in New York that will flow Marcellus gas into New York State. The radicals of the Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul administrations have repeatedly delayed the project. NFG still wants to build it but needs more time.

Last July, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave NFG an extra 35 months to get the project done–until Dec. 31, 2024 (see FERC Gives NFG Extra 3 Years to Build Northern Access Pipeline). The Sierra Club appealed FERC’s time extension for the project, and it currently sits in court. Could an Act of Congress like the one that helped MVP finish help Northern Access too?

That question terrifies the Communist left–litigation mills like the Sierra Club. They are frightened that Congress will begin to bypass the broken court system (that the left routinely abuses) to finish more fossil energy projects. The left is afraid that MVP will become the “template” or model for how to get new power projects done. We certainly hope so!

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a story about MVP becoming the template, with a focus on what it may mean for NFG’s Northern Access Pipeline project:

A year ago, the Mountain Valley Pipeline faced continued delays, court battles and environmental challenges.

Now, the Army Corps of Engineers has until Saturday to “issue all permits or verifications necessary” to complete the controversial, 300-mile natural gas pipeline from the northwestern part of West Virginia to southern Virginia.

That language fast-tracking the project was tucked into the bipartisan bill that suspended the debt ceiling to avoid a government default this month. As the Pennsylvania-based firm behind the pipeline races ahead, environmentalists warn that the sudden turnaround for Equitrans Midstream and its partners sets a dangerous precedent that could clear the path for more fossil fuel projects without sufficient oversight — in Pennsylvania and across the U.S.

“It risks opening the floodgates to any pet fossil fuel project across the country to be exempted from environmental protections,” said Mahyar Sorour, a director at the Sierra Club, an environmentalist group.

Ms. Sorour said projects like National Fuel’s Northern Access pipeline — proposed for almost 100 miles between McKean County in Pennsylvania and Elma, N.Y. — and other pipelines through the Great Lakes and Tennessee could be fast-tracked under similar circumstances to the debt ceiling bill. She said that “undermines bedrock environmental law.”

“We hope that doesn’t happen, but there’s always the risk that others will try and replicate this,” said Amy Mall, a senior advocate at the National Resources Defense Council.

Proponents say Mountain Valley will boost American energy security and reduce costs. They also argue the project is already almost complete, a point opponents and environmental groups dispute.

New York state regulators have rejected the Northern Access pipeline multiple times over the last few years. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved National Fuel’s request for a 35-month extension to build the pipeline by the end of 2024. Sierra Club challenged the extension in court.

“We are in the midst of the appeal process,” Karen Merkel, a National Fuel spokesperson, said in an email. “We expect briefing and oral argument to be complete by late spring/early summer. … Once we have resolution of that appeal, we will be able to further assess [the] timeline for the project.”

The Mountain Valley Pipeline, envisioned to bring shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica in Appalachia to markets in the Southeast, began construction in 2018. It has long been a lightning rod for environmentalists and renewable energy advocates opposed to new pipelines, while proponents say improved natural gas infrastructure will cut costs and help the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The pipeline could generate $150 million a year in royalty payments and $2 billion a year in gas sales in Pennsylvania, according to FTI Consulting. In addition, $400 million already has been spent in Southwestern Pennsylvania to deliver gas to the pipeline.

Mountain Valley’s fast-tracking was a White House concession to U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., who had long pushed for the project. But until the debt ceiling bill signed by President Joe Biden on June 3, advocates and several Democrats in Congress had helped block the project from being attached to previous spending and defense bills.

Bruce Ledewitz, a Duquesne University law professor, said Congress has authority over interstate commerce such as pipelines — leaving few if any avenues to challenge the kind of bipartisan deal hashed out over the debt ceiling.

“Once Congress can legislate, all state and local law can be preempted,” he said. “And you can do that in general — no zoning limits on pipelines, or specifically, no zoning limits on this pipeline.”

Equitrans Midstream did not respond to a request for comment. The company, which is based in Canonsburg, in Washington County, has said the $6.6 billion project will be complete by the end of the year.

Equitrans CEO Thomas F. Karam said in a recent statement that the project “has gone through more environmental review and scrutiny than any natural gas pipeline project in U.S. history.”

“Congressional involvement to legislate the approval of this project only magnifies the critical need for more robust and comprehensive permitting reform that goes beyond the important initial steps in this legislation,” Mr. Karam said. “Absent a more certain regulatory review and approval process, we are impeding companies’ ability to invest capital, including in renewable projects, for the benefit of our Nation’s economy, energy security and energy affordability.”

Dena Wiggins, CEO of the Natural Gas Suppliers Association, a trade group, also applauded the debt ceiling deal and called for permitting reform “to unlock more benefits for U.S. consumers.”

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro and his Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection, Rich Negrin, have vowed to make environmental permitting more predictable, efficient and customer-friendly.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on environmentalists’ concerns. But John Podesta, a senior clean energy advisor to Mr. Biden, told reporters Tuesday that the Mountain Valley Pipeline is “on its way to being permitted anyway” and called it “inevitable,” The Hill reported.

A provision in the debt ceiling bill also appears to kill any pending legal action and block any future lawsuits over the Mountain Valley Pipeline. One previous court battle involved Virginia landowners who say parts of their land were given for pipeline use without their approval. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court sent that case back to a federal appeals court, which had previously dismissed the landowners’ cases, according to Virginia Public Radio.

NRDC, Sierra Club and Appalachian Voices say that more than 400 water crossings for the pipeline remain to be completed because the project previously didn’t have federal approval under the Clean Water Act.

“It’s some of the most dangerous construction,” Ms. Mall said. “Some of the steepest slopes, technically challenging and most risky, not just for water quality but landslides, erosion and other risks on the surface. Community groups on the ground will be striving to get agencies to impose and enforce compliance with the strongest possible standards.”

U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, said continuing construction will keep thousands of workers on the job and the completed pipeline will lower energy costs. He credited Republicans for fighting “tirelessly” to include the pipeline in the debt ceiling bill.

”Across America, far-left activists and President Biden have wreaked havoc on our nation’s energy independence, resulting in higher energy costs and an over-reliance on our adversaries for resources we can produce here at home,” he said. “Let’s be clear: Radical environmentalists delayed the pipeline by five years and accrued over $3 billion in extra costs.”

Mr. Manchin this week said that once completed, the pipeline “will provide economic prosperity and reliable access to affordable natural gas to communities across the region.”

Here’s the reality: Joe Manchin couldn’t get the MVP deal done. He gets a little bit of credit for trying, but in the end, he couldn’t do it. It was West Virginia’s Republican delegation that dragged MVP across the finish line. We’ve had MDN readers tell us we’re being partisan and full of it with that view. We think that’s the only honest view of what happened with MVP.

However, the point in bringing you this story is to plant the seed that other projects, like Northern Access, can and SHOULD use MVP as the template for getting done. We must find a way around foreign-financed (Russia, China) Big Green groups like the Sierra Club to get American fossil energy projects completed. Enough is enough.

For more great articles on natural gas development every single day, subscribe to Marcellus Drilling News using this convenient link.