April 13, 2018: The Sierra Club Environmental Law Program filed a request for rehearing and motion for stay in the FERC docket for the Sabal Trail pipeline. Last year, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals remanded and vacated FERC's approval of the pipeline after agreeing with the Sierra Club and its allies that the agency had unlawfully failed to consider downstream greenhouse gas emissions from burning the gas transported by the pipeline. Earlier this year, in response to the court's ruling, FERC issued a supplemental environmental impact statement and an order reinstating authorization for the pipeline.
The rehearing request emphasizes the problems with FERC's analysis and decision, including what dissenting Commissioner Glick called FERC's "collateral attack on the Court’s decision." Despite the court's ruling to the contrary, FERC maintains that it is not its "job" to consider whether emissions from "the end use of the gas would be too harmful to the environment." The rehearing request also challenges FERC's misleading downstream greenhouse-gas estimates, FERC's failure to properly discuss significance and cumulative impact of downstream emissions, and its failure to use the social cost of carbon tool. The pipeline is already in the ground and operating, but the request includes a motion for stay of Phases 2 and 3 of the project, which include construction of two compressor stations -- with consequent environmental justice and climate impacts.