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DC Circuit Rules NEXUS Pipeline Approval by FERC was Righteous
Last year Big Green lobbyists using the City of Oberlin, Ohio contested the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision to approve the Enbridge/DTE Energy NEXUS pipeline, a $2 billion, 255-mile pipeline from the Ohio Utica Shale into Michigan that’s been flowing for years connecting to a pipeline that exports some of the gas into Canada (see Oberlin, OH Still Fighting to Shut Down Long-Running NEXUS Pipe). Big Green/Oberlin claimed FERC’s approval of NEXUS was faulty because some gas gets exported to Canada and is not “in the public interest.” A federal court ruled last week against Oberlin, siding with FERC’s decision to approve the NEXUS project.
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Last October MDN told you that DTE Energy, a long-time pipeline builder and operator in the Marcellus/Utica region, was considering either selling or spinning off its pipeline business (see 
DTE Energy has been a long-time pipeline builder and operator in the Marcellus/Utica region. DTE, based in Detroit, is both a utility company and a midstream/pipeline company. According to an in-depth Forbes article (quoting Bloomberg), DTE is “exploring options” to either sell or spin-off its natural gas pipeline assets, including those in the M-U.
One of the selling points to make big interstate pipeline projects more palatable to the general public, at least in Ohio, has been the fact they pay annual property taxes. We can tell you from personal experience that a small pipeline in the Town of Windsor (NY, yes! NY) has meant lower property tax bills for MDN editor Jim Willis. Two very large pipeline projects in Ohio, Rover and NEXUS, are asking Stark County to reduce their assessments so they can pay less in taxes–up to 50% less.
Last June DTE Energy filed paperwork in Michigan to build a new “state-of-the-art” natural gas-fired power plant in St. Clair County (see 
NEXUS Pipeline is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate natural gas pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. NEXUS was one of the large pipeline projects left out of a list of pipelines that received final Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval back in early February, just prior to FERC losing a quorum of voting members (see 
When reporting on the flurry of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approvals from last Friday, before Commissioner Norman Bay resigned in a huff over losing the chairmanship of the agency (and leaving the Commission with only two Commissioners, not enough to vote on more projects), we noticed there was one major Marcellus/Utica pipeline project that didn’t receive a final approval: the NEXUS Pipeline project. NEXUS is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. It is a critically needed pipeline to move Utica and Marcellus Shale gas from an over-saturated market in the northeast to markets in the Midwest and Canada. It is a joint venture between DTE Energy and Spectra Energy. In December FERC issued a positive final Environmental Impact Statement (see