California regulators may announce by the end of the week whether they plan to appeal FERC’s decision asserting “exclusive jurisdiction” over Sound Energy Solution’s planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal for the Port of Long Beach, CA, an attorney for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said Tuesday.

“We may have some news” following a closed meeting Thursday during which the agency plans to discuss its legal options with respect to the June 9 FERC rehearing order, said CPUC attorney Harvey Morris. “It may be on that day that we will announce our intentions.”

The CPUC has 60 days from the June 9 decision to seek an appeal at the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In that order, the FERC denied for a second time the CPUC’s bid to claim sole jurisdiction over the LNG project of Sound Energy, a U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. (see Daily GPI, June 14).

FERC held that it had exclusive jurisdiction under Section 3 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA) and by the authority of the energy secretary over the siting, construction and operations of the import terminal proposed by Sound Energy.

At its public meeting Thursday, the CPUC will discuss the position it will want to take with respect to legislation offered in late May by U.S. Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE), which would place the jurisdiction over LNG terminals solely in the hands of FERC, ending the “jurisdictional conflicts and legal ambiguities” that currently exist (see Daily GPI, May 21).

The bill also would make FERC the lead agency for carrying out environmental reviews and the permitting of LNG projects; set a deadline for the Commission to act on LNG terminal projects (one year after an application has been filed); and codify a FERC ruling exempting LNG terminals from the agency’s open-access requirements.

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