Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide NY | Transco | Williams
Cuomo Rejection of NESE Pipe Pushes Fed 401 Cert “to the Extreme”
We recently brought you several stories about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s predictable (and foolhardy) rejection of the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project to pipe more natural gas to a desperate New York City and Long Island (see NY Gov. Cuomo Denies Permit for Williams NESE Pipeline to NYC and Economic Fallout from Cuomo’s Decision to Kill NESE Pipeline). We’ve located another unique perspective on Cuomo’s decision, this one looking at the shaky legal basis Cuomo used to reject the project.
Read More “Cuomo Rejection of NESE Pipe Pushes Fed 401 Cert “to the Extreme””
Earlier this year, under the direction of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the state issued new draft regulations aimed at shutting down most of the state’s “peaker plants”–small electric generating plants that produce electricity for brief periods during high demand (see 
Yesterday New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo dropped an economic atom bomb on New York City by rejecting a natural gas pipeline to bring more supplies of clean-burning natgas to NYC and Long Island (see 
Hey New York Islanders NHL team–you’re screwed. No new stadium because your governor, Andrew Cuomo has just directed his corrupt Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to deny a permit to build the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) natural gas pipeline, a pipeline your new stadium needs or won’t get built. You can thank Andy for blowing your billion dollar project. Oh, and residents in NYC’s tenement buildings who won’t have heat next winter because their landlords are being forced by the city to dump fuel oil and now have nothing to switch to? They can thank Andy too, as they huddle with their winter coats on in their freezing apartments.
Guess we should have seen this one coming. Last week MDN told you that U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected an appeal by the rich snobs from Cooperstown that call themselves Otsego 2000, challenging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of Dominion Energy’s New Market Project to build two new compressor stations in Upstate NY (see 
Several so-called environmental groups, including one calling itself the Sane Energy Project, converged on Albany, NY yesterday to protest two new natural gas pipeline projects. How many committed, dedicated, climate warriors showed up from these “several” groups? Thousands? Hundreds? How about two dozen. Nobody would have noticed the protest except sycophantic media outlets arrived to plaster the event all over the airwaves (and newsprint). Rather disheartening is that an 11-year-old boy who’s been brainwashed was among the protesters. Of course the media loved it.
Antis pinned their hopes that they could get the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval for Dominion to build a couple of compressor stations in upstate New York, thereby forcing FERC to consider mythical man-made global warming in ALL pipeline decisions. The case had the makings of being a “landmark” case. Yesterday antis lost their landmark case when the court ruled the party bringing the lawsuit, Otsego 2000, didn’t have standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place.
Hey Westchester County, NY: You have a model to look at for your own moratorium on (blocking of) new natural gas customers. It’s located upstate, in Lansing, NY, just outside of college town Ithaca. The local utility (NYSEG) wanted to build a short pipeline in 2017 to supply new customers with natgas, but was blocked by crazies who irrationally hate fossil fuels (see 
Two Democrat New York State legislators, Senator Jen Metzger and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, are floating parallel bills that would outright ban any new natural gas-fired electric plants or natural gas pipelines in the state. Really bizarre stuff. They’re calling this lunacy “Freedom from Fossil Fuels.” Want to run a new gas pipeline from the local utility to a new housing development or commercial business park? Forget it. No new gas customer hookups *anywhere* in the state–not just in Westchester County (see 
On multiple occasions we have outlined the reasons why federal agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) exist–in order to prevent individual states from harming their neighbors economically. An individual state can’t block a new interstate highway, or the trucks and cars that travel it, from entering their state. It’s the same for power transmission lines and for pipelines. Yet New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is violating that law by rejecting interstate pipelines.
Last Friday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a final approval for Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project by a vote of 3-1 (full copy below). The only remaining regulatory hurdles are for both New York State and New Jersey to issue federal Clean Water Act 401 certificates to allow the project to cross bodies of water in their respective territorial waters. All eyes are now on NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and what he will do. Will he approve the project, benefiting New York City and Long Island with much-needed gas? Or will he veto the project, harming millions of NY residents, simply to placate a small group of very vocal radical leftists who pretend to care about the environment? He has until May 16 to decide.