AES Corp. has filed a complaint in a Maryland circuit court, seeking to overturn a Baltimore County ordinance that bans the construction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities along its part of the Chesapeake Bay.

The Arlington, VA-based energy company asked the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to reverse the county’s zoning ordinance barring the “establishment or expansion” of LNG facilities in the bay’s critical areas.

The complaint comes on the heels of a U.S. District Court’s decision last month upholding the county’s zoning prohibition against LNG facilities. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett dealt a blow to the energy company’s plans to build its Sparrows Point LNG terminal in the city of Baltimore (see Daily GPI, June 27).

AES contends that Baltimore County’s zoning ordinance violates the Energy Policy Act of 2005’s amendments to the Natural Gas Act, which gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sole jurisdiction over the siting of LNG facilities. The company has appealed Bennett’s decision to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, VA.

Also cited in the latest complaint was Maryland’s Critical Areas Commission, which last month approved the county’s zoning ordinance banning LNG facilities in certain Chesapeake Bay coastal areas. The commission’s action was needed to formally incorporate the new law into the county’s coastal plan (see Daily GPI, June 12).

Baltimore County Council passed the controversial zoning measure earlier this year. The action came within days of AES filing its application at FERC to build the Sparrows Point LNG project on the site of a former steel mill on a peninsula that juts out into Chesapeake Bay in the city of Baltimore (see Daily GPI, Jan. 9).

The Sparrows Point project would have about 1.5 Bcf/d of regasification capacity with a potential for expansion to 2.25 Bcf/d. Regasified LNG would be delivered to regional markets via Mid-Atlantic Express, an 87-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline that would extend from the terminal to connections with interstate pipelines at Eagle, PA. The pipeline also would include connections with local distribution company Baltimore Gas & Electric.

The project, including three LNG storage tanks, would be located on 80 acres within the existing Sparrows Point Industrial Complex in Baltimore County. The site was previously owned by Bethlehem Steel and housed a steel manufacturing and shipbuilding facility.

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