Burning down the planet one pipeline at a time….
Trump considers undercutting state authority in quest to expedite pipeline development
Congress would need to rewrite the Clean Water Act to limit state powers, legal experts say.
The Trump administration is reviewing steps it could take to prevent state officials from using their authority under the Clean Water Act to deny permits to developers of natural gas pipelines and other energy infrastructure.
The administration is reportedly considering issuing an executive order that would limit the ability of states to block natural gas pipelines and other energy projects. But legal experts countered that Trump would not be able to amend the Clean Water Act simply through the issuance of an executive order.
“I struggle to come up with a way he could basically rewrite the Clean Water Act with an executive order,” Scott Edwards, co-director of the climate and energy program at Food & Water Watch, told ThinkProgress.
Section 401 of the Clean Water Act requires companies seeking a federal license or permit to build facilities that may result in a release of a pollution into waters to obtain a permit from the state in which the discharge would occur.
Politico reported Thursday that Trump’s effort, possibly through an executive order, is aimed primarily at states in the Northeast, where opposition to proposed pipelines has put the projects on hold or forced them to be canceled.
“I don’t put anything beyond Trump’s efforts, whether it’s legal or illegal,” Edwards said.
Nonetheless, the Clean Water Act clearly gives states the authority to review a project’s potential impacts on water quality and allows them to deny permits when they deem it necessary.
Moneen Nasmith, a staff attorney with the nonprofit group Earthjustice, told ThinkProgress it’s “pretty darn clear” that states have authority to issue permits under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act and that the courts have upheld that authority, including in the context of pipelines.
“The Trump administration has been making noise about trying to do something to help these gas pipelines that are not used to being told no. But that doesn’t mean it has the authority to do that. And they don’t,” Nasmith said. “It doesn’t mean they won’t try. But it’s extremely difficult for me to envision how they would even begin to try to do that given the really clear language of Section 401.”
The future of several pipeline projects is in jeopardy over disagreements with state regulators. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), for example, denied a Section 401 permit to Constitution Pipeline Co., which would transport natural gas from northeastern Pennsylvania into New York.
The state agency also used its Section 401 authority to deny Millennium Pipeline a water quality permit for its Valley Lateral Project, a pipeline project that would serve a natural gas-fired power plant. However, a federal court ruled last March that New York State took too long in making its decision to deny water quality certification to Valley Lateral pipeline, amounting to a waiver of its right to block the project.
In New Jersey, state environmental regulators have yet to issue a Section 401 permit to the developers of the PennEast Pipeline, a 120-mile pipeline that would transport natural gas from northeastern Pennsylvania into New Jersey. The developers had hoped to begin construction on the pipeline in 2018. They now hope to begin construction in April.