FERC proposes dropping air dispersion modeling from gas project reviews

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed Thursday to stop requiring air dispersion modeling in its reviews of gas projects under the National Environmental Policy Act. The draft policy statement, adopted on a 4-1 vote at the agency's monthly meeting, is part of a package aimed at easing development of gas pipelines and LNG export terminals.

Chairman Laura Swett said the proposals are geared in part to ensuring gas-fired power plants can get fuel. “Building generation involves gas,” she said. “The only current restriction on getting American gas is our ability to get the gas to market and the infrastructure bottlenecks.”

Air dispersion models simulate how a proposed project's emissions spread in the atmosphere and interact with background pollution and emissions from nearby sources, according to FERC. Swett called the models “an unnecessary source of confusion, delay and litigation risk.”

The draft policy statement says the streamlined approach is designed to bring NEPA analysis “back in line with the statutory text and common sense” and to avoid duplicating Clean Air Act review entrusted to the Environmental Protection Agency and state air permitting agencies. Swett said the change would address the bottleneck without reducing environmental oversight.

Commissioner Judy Chang dissented, saying the change would make it harder to assess how people near gas projects may be affected. Air dispersion models are “the best tool we have for understanding the likely local and regional air impacts of the projects we permit, outside of actually having physical monitors,” she said.

FERC also proposed a three-tiered blanket authorization framework for LNG projects. Some activities would proceed automatically without an application, others would require a 60-day notice and comment period, and additions at an existing plant—liquefaction trains, LNG tanks and marine berths—would require 90 days. FERC said the framework is “rooted in the simple principle” that the commission should devote its resources to projects that warrant searching scrutiny and give the rest a more efficient pathway. The 90-day review for adding liquefaction trains, LNG tanks or marine berths would give developers a clearer timetable, though gas projects would still go through NEPA analysis without the modeling step.

This publication has argued that grid interconnection and gas supply, not capital, now set the schedule for new load. Swett's framing is the same claim from the commission's side of the table, and the 4-1 vote leaves one commissioner on record that the change weakens FERC's ability to judge the local air effects of the projects it permits.