BillHustonBlog: Inadequate and Ineffective: EPA & FERC

This was sent to me today by David Sligh of Wild Virginia, who wrote,

"The Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition is releasing the attached report today. Thought it might be of interest to some of you."

Inadequate and Ineffective:

A Review of the U.S. EPA's Responses to Draft Environmental Impact Statements Issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition

December 21, 2016

Introduction

The Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition studied eighteen cases in which the U.S Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA" or the "Agency") commented on Environmental Impact Statements prepared by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC" or the "Commission") for natural gas projects, in accordance with requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The main conclusions from this study:

 EPA, in every case, identified important information and analyses that should have been included in the Draft Environmental Impact Statements (DEISs) but was not, assigning ratings of "insufficient information" for each of the eighteen project reviews.

 The data and analyses EPA found missing from the FERC DEISs were often critical to support valid environmental assessments and to ensure environmental and human health protections.

 EPA acknowledged that FERC's omissions prevented the public, EPA, and other agencies from properly understanding impacts from the projects or making effective comments - yet EPA did not insist upon revised or supplemental DEISs to remedy these situations.

 FERC often disregarded EPA's comments and suggestions on the DEISs and continued to omit necessary information from the Final Environmental Impact Statements (FEISs), illustrating the ineffectual nature of EPA's comments and ratings.

 EPA has failed in its duty as a "watchdog" over FERC's implementation of NEPA - the Agency must take more forceful action or continue to fail in this mission.

Full Document:

http://TinyURL.com/EpaFercInadequateIneffective

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