A Cloudy Sunshine Week for FERC

Of all the Washington tropes designed to promote a feeling of good will and civic investment in the government, the annual mid-March “Sunshine Week” is probably the most galling. Sunshine Week celebrates transparency at all levels of government. The celebration was marked at the federal level this year by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (or FERC) ejecting an outraged member of the public from its monthly Commissioner’s meeting for speaking out against the regulatory body’s continuing mission to approve pipelines across the country with no regard for the concerns of the public.

FERC is the arm of the government in charge of approving or rejecting pipeline applications from natural gas companies across the nation. As the fracking industry grows, pumping more natural gas into the market and requiring transportation these pipelines are becoming more common.

FERC requires a lengthy application process by companies seeking pipeline permit approval. The process includes scoping hearings. Scoping hearings are hearings where FERC listens to the concerns of the affected communities about the project to determine the “scope” of what the commission will study to base its determination of approval or denial on.

Scoping hearings tend to be antagonistic. Most people interested enough in the subject of a pipeline going through their community to attend a scoping hearing are opposed to the project. And they don’t care for FERC- they feel the commission is ignoring them.

FERC’s perceived unresponsiveness to the public is becoming a slow-moving PR nightmare for the commission. Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur told the National Press Club in January of 2015 that:

Pipelines are facing unprecedented opposition from local and national groups including environmental activists. These groups are active in every FERC docket, as they should be, as well as in my email inbox seven days a week, in my Twitter feed, at our open meetings demanding to be heard, and literally at our door closing down First Street so FERC won’t be able to work.

One of those environmental activists is Nancy Vann, of Peekskill, NY. Vann attended FERC’s monthly Commissioner’s meeting to address the regulatory body and make them listen. She wasn’t given the chance. From The Peekskill Post:

”As I was starting to address Chairman Bay, a woman grabbed me and started pulling me across two other people who were between me and the aisle,” Vann said, recalling the incident. “I said, ‘Let me get my cane’ but she kept grabbing me and pulling me so hard that I fell and then three of them carried me out of the room.”

Vann said she was fed up with the organization’s rubber stamping of pipeline projects. FERC has a reputation for approving almost every pipeline it can. That reputation that was confirmed by a FERC media representative in a tense phone call on Friday.

I called FERC to inquire why the agency’s site does not have a list of rejected projects. They replied that many projects are withdrawn for one reason or another and that keeping a comprehensive list of all said projects was “not our job.”

I pressed the topic. Why doesn’t FERC keep prominently displayed records of the projects it rejects? It prominently displays the ones it approves.

“After we deny pipelines, we don’t think about them,” theyy said. “We’re not keeping track of that stuff. We process the case and do our analysis. And we really don’t reject very many.”

FERC told me that if I wanted to look for pipeline denials, I could comb through the agency’s “e-library” by docket number.

Currently the e-library’s search function is down.

Happy Sunshine Week.