Pipeline & Gas Journal
March 2014 - for the online version go HERE.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will look again at a
new rule requiring certificates to be filed for right-of-way auxiliary
construction and for landowners to be given a five-day heads-up before
construction and maintenance work starts. That rule was published in
November and went into effect Feb. 3.
The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) and
National Fuel Gas Supply Corp. both asked for a rehearing, and FERC
granted that wish on Jan. 29. The rule was issued as the result of a
petition submitted in 2012 by INGAA whose requests were essentially
squashed by FERC when it issued a final rule in November.
Joan Dreskin, general counsel, INGAA, says, "FERC issued a standard
‘tolling order’ in this case which allows them to act when they wish on
the rehearing/clarification."
In part, the debate revolves around the difference between
replacement and auxiliary facilities. FERC wants them treated similarly
as "jurisdictional," meaning they would have similar requirements with
regard to pipeline companies filing certificates which the commission
would have to approve before the companies could start construction.
INGAA says auxiliary facilities shouldn't be permitted.
INGAA had started the ball rolling in 2012 because of Commission
staff discussions with pipeline representatives where FERC staffers
stated that companies undertaking section 2.55(a) auxiliary
installations to augment existing facilities must stay within the
right-of-way or facility site for the existing facilities and restrict
construction activities to previously used work spaces. Industry
officials thought this was a change in policy which would force them to
obtain certificates when auxiliary facilities were installed outside
rights-of-way. The kinds of auxiliary facilities at issue include:
valves; drips; pig launchers/receivers; yard and station piping;
cathodic protection equipment; gas cleaning, cooling and dehydration
equipment; residual refining equipment; and water-pumping equipment.
Given that ostensible change in policy made outside any rulemaking,
INGAA filed its petition in 2012. FERC issued a proposed rule in
December 2012 which simply codified the position its staff had laid out.
INGAA protested. FERC argued the proposed rule was only a
"clarification" which "articulated existing, long-standing constraints
and obligations with respect to auxiliary installations." It then took
more comments before ignoring INGAA's protests again when issuing the
final rule last November.
The final rule also codified for the first time the common industry
practice of notifying landowners prior to coming onto their property to
install, replace or maintain auxiliary or replacement facilities.
In its request for rehearing, INGAA says that in the Final Rule, the
Commission "persists as well in a fiction that its new ruling does not
change what had been the plain and universal understanding of that
provision for approximately 60 years until the December 2012 NOPR."
In addition to unlawfully converting an entire class of exempt,
non-jurisdictional auxiliary installations into jurisdictional NGA
facilities, the Commission, without referencing a record of abuse,
without identifying any material threat to its statutory obligations,
and without providing any premise based on relevant facts, extends
regulatory limitations to these installations that in the past have
applied only to separate and distinct replacement activities. The
Commission’s Final Rule is arbitrary and capricious. It is not the
product of reasoned decision making.
Besides absolving auxiliary activities from permitting, INGAA also
wants FERC to clarify that the five-day prior notification requirement
would not apply to activities done for safety, DOT compliance, in
response to “one-call obligations,” or environmental or unplanned
maintenance reasons that are not foreseen and that require immediate
attention by the company and for activities that result in ground
disturbance where such disturbance would be located entirely within the
fence line of an existing, aboveground facility site.
David W. Reitz, Deputy General Counsel, National Fuel Gas Supply
Corp. and attorney for Empire Pipeline, points out that PHMSA’s
regulations require a company discovering a pipeline anomaly requiring
immediate remediation to excavate and inspect the pipeline within five
days of discovery. "Because of the time required to verify or determine
the names and addresses of the property owners and to deliver the
notices, five-day advance landowner notification would be impractical in
these circumstances," he explains. "In addition, a pipeline receiving a
one-call notification often has a maximum of 48 hours to determine and
mark the precise location of its facilities, which may require some
excavation."
