A federal commission on Thursday gave the green light to a pipeline project that would increase the flow of Canadian natural gas through the Pacific Northwest and California, despite opposition from tribes, attorneys general, governors and members of Congress.
GTN, a subsidiary of TC Energy, brings in natural gas, which is mostly methane, from Alberta via a 1,377-mile pipeline that cuts through Idaho, Eastern Washington and Oregon to link with California pipeline networks.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted Thursday to authorize a project that is anticipated to allow TC Energy to increase the volume of the fracked gas by about 150 million cubic feet per day through the existing pipeline.
The project is expected to increase greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 3.47 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually for the next three decades, according to a filing from Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and the Oregon and California justice departments.
Washington’s greenhouse-gas emissions in 2019 reached their highest level since 2007: 102 million metric tons. It was a 7% increase from 2018, and 9% higher than 1990 levels.
Washington state lawmakers have passed a spate of climate legislation in recent years that placed utilities and the state’s largest emitting businesses on a fast track to become carbon free.
“Today’s decision by FERC flies in the face of what is morally and economically necessary to protect our communities from the worsening impacts of climate change,” Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement Thursday. “… It makes no sense to shackle ourselves to a source of energy whose cost will go up in the coming decades instead of the clean energy sources whose costs are coming down dramatically.”
The vote comes just hours after Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell joined Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley in urging FERC to reject TC Energy’s proposal.
The senators pointed to the proposal’s conflict with West Coast climate laws and a potential rise in energy costs for consumers, as well as TC Energy’s safety record and FERC’s lack of consultation with tribes before a final decision.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, formed in 1977 by the Nez Perce Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and Yakama Nation, wrote in 2022 that FERC did not engage in reasonable consultation with the tribes.
The fish commission wrote that the project “is in direct conflict with tribal goals in reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.”
In 2019, TC Energy announced the project to boost the pipeline’s capacity and reliability largely by improving three compressor stations in Kootenai County, Idaho; Walla Walla County; and Sherman County, Ore. The compressors are like the engines powering the long distance gas pipelines, compressing the gas to allow it to flow through the pipeline.
TC Energy also owns the Keystone Pipeline System, which carries crude oil from Canada to multiple states. A pipeline failure last winter released more than 580,000 gallons of crude oil into Mill Creek in Kansas.
The states and intervening nonprofits will have the opportunity to file a petition for rehearing to FERC. Construction can’t begin until a petition for rehearing is resolved. Nonprofits Columbia Riverkeeper and Rogue Climate plan to file, said Audrey Leonard, staff attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper.
“It just really illustrates the huge contrast between the Biden administration’s commitment to environmental justice and listening to front-line communities when you have a project like this one that has been opposed by not only the communities themselves, but also our senators and representatives and tribes,” Leonard said.
“You see that with communities on the Gulf Coast, you are seeing almost unlimited expansion of LNG export facilities. They have been very vocal about the effects on their communities, and it just really isn’t resulting in any sort of change behavior from FERC.”
Ferguson said he and his team are reviewing their options.
Inslee and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek asked FERC to deny the permit for the project early this year.
“We are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to jumpstart clean energy projects, clean up air pollution in overburdened communities and help residents access affordable clean transportation and energy,” Inslee wrote in March. “Expanding fracked gas through the GTN pipeline runs contrary to our climate goals, and risks further costly environmental harm to our state.”
Washington’s 2019 Clean Energy Transformation Act and 2021 Climate Commitment Act put the state on a timeline for lowering emissions. The 2019 law calls for utilities to become carbon neutral by 2030 and carbon free by 2045.
The Climate Commitment Act set a cap on statewide emissions that gradually ratchets down over time and requires most of the state’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases to pay to pollute. Using 1990 emissions as the baseline, the state is required to reduce its emissions 95% by 2050.
GTN is participating in Washington’s carbon-pricing program, TC Energy spokesperson Michael Tadeo said; however, GTN is not subject to the Oregon Climate Protection Program.
Demand for natural gas transportation service on the system has grown by more than 26% since 2014, Tadeo said. The project would create additional capacity equal to powering 500,000 homes, Tadeo said.
Natural gas remains a big part of the Northwest energy mix.
When it leaks unburnt into the atmosphere, the methane in natural gas is a much more potent, although shorter-lived, greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
When natural gas combusts, it emits less carbon dioxide than coal and crude oil, producing an equivalent of the amount of energy, and the natural gas industry has argued that should play a key role in helping transition to cleaner fuels.
Material from The Seattle Times archives was used in this report.
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