WATCHING WASHINGTON SPOTLIGHT ON FERC PERMITTING

A congressional watchdog agency has agreed with the U.S. pipeline industry that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should speed its construction permitting process.

Rep. Mike Synar (D-Okla.), chairman of the House environment, energy, and natural resources subcommittee, has been critical of FERC's Rip Van Winkle approach to permitting (OGJ, Nov. 5, 1990, p. 13).

And at a recent subcommittee hearing, the General Accounting Office released an analysis of FERC permitting.

GAO's Victor Rezendes said the median time for FERC approval of 125 certificates was 331 days. FERC delayed action on 10 of them more than 2 years.

CAUSE OF DELAYS

Rezendes said the delays were caused by intervention by competitors or other parties, competition from other applicants, unresolved policy issues, incomplete applications, and environmental reviews.

GAO also noted "detailed information on FERC's policies are not getting down (from the commission level) to the staff level or to the industry."

Rezendes observed FERC is blaming other agencies for delays in its environmental reviews of pipeline projects and wants to be made the lead agency for those reviews. But GAO said FERC could not document that claim.

"Rather than providing FERC with additional authority in the environmental review area, we believe a better approach would be for FERC to negotiate agreements with other federal agencies to better coordinate reviews," GAO said.

On that point, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America gave the subcommittee a study saying most FERC's delays are due to duplicate federal environmental reviews.

The Senate energy committee's omnibus energy bill would make FERC the lead agency for environmental law compliance and offers an expedited permitting process.

Finally, GAO said, FERC's management information system-the Key Indicator Case Tracking System-doesn't really enable the agency to evaluate its certification process.

IN DEFENSE OF FERC

Martin Allday, FERC chairman, responded GAO's figures were skewed because they included large, controversial pipeline projects such as Iroquois, Kern River, and Mojave that took an inordinate amount of time.

Allday said, "We've generally done a good job." He said the process has been speeded, and only 10 current pipeline construction applications are more than 2 years old.

"From October 1988 to today, we have authorized 140 major pipeline projects for 18.1 bcfd of new capacity, representing some 3.224 million b/d of potential oil displacement. These projects involve $8.3 billion in new investment and 8,015 miles of new pipeline."

He said FERC commissioners will consider a rulemaking this month that would speed the permitting process.

And he blamed the pipeline industry for many of the delays when companies submit incomplete applications or file protests to each other's projects.

Allday also said a period of 1 year for FERC to approve a certificate is "fair, about right."

He added, "When I was in private life, a year seemed to be an awfully long time, but up here (in Washington) it doesn't seem that long."

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