Breaking News: Nexus Gets FERC Certificate

Moments ago, FERC issued the certificate for the NEXUS project and the related projects by Texas Eastern, DTE Gas and Vector Pipeline, which is days after LawIQ's forecasted date. The Commission appeared to not be troubled by either the fact that NEXUS had precedent agreements for less than 60% of the capacity nor that some of the subscribed capacity was held by affiliates of the project sponsors.

It appears that the Order may have been delayed somewhat by the D.C. Circuit Court decision in the Sabal Trail Project issued on Tuesday. The NEXUS order expressly discusses that the Final Environmental Impact Statement estimated the greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning gas to be transported by NEXUS, consistent with the quantification that the Sabal Trail court required.


The Commission also distinguishes the facts of this project from the record in Sabal Trail which showed that the natural gas to be transported on the new project would be delivered to specific destinations - power plants in Florida - such that the court concluded that the burning of the gas in those plants was reasonably foreseeable and the impacts of that activity warranted environmental examination. In contrast, the gas to be transported by NEXUS will be delivered into the interstate natural pipeline grid, and its end use is thus, according to FERC, not predictable.


The distinctions between the two projects will be carefully reviewed by other projects awaiting their FERC certificates to determine if their cases can similarly be distinguished from Sabal Trail.