"The prospects for new fossil fuel infrastructure in the US have gone from bad to worse after regulators beefed-up environmental requirements for natural gas pipelines, adding to the woes of an industry under siege from campaigners.
For the first time in more than two decades, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted on Thursday to overhaul the certification process for new gas pipelines,
providing for greater scrutiny of the economic need for projects, as well as their impacts on the environment, communities, and landowners.
The changes mean that new pipeline approvals — already subject to a lengthy review and often facing legal challenges — will become significantly more difficult to attain.
... “Pending projects just went from being in limbo to being in purgatory,” said Brandon Barnes, senior energy litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
“I think it is probably as close as you can get to FERC saying ‘We’re
not going to permit anything on the natural gas side for a while.’” ...