FERC said it is concerned about a potential conflict of interest by an environmental contractor that is working on both a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Oregon and an interstate gas pipeline project in that state.

The staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) expressed its concern in a letter last week to Minneapolis-based Natural Resource Group (NRG), which is the environmental consultant for both the proposed Bradwood Landing LNG facility and the Palomar Gas Transmission pipeline project that would provide service to the LNG terminal if it is built [CP06-365, PF07-13].

“The FERC staff is concerned that NRG’s work for Palomar Gas Transmission LLC on its pipeline project in Oregon, currently under our prefiling review…, creates the appearance of a conflict of interest due to the relationship between the Palomar pipeline and the Bradwood Landing LNG Project,” wrote Richard R. Hoffmann, director of FERC’s Division of Gas-Environment and Engineering.

“NRG’s work on the Palomar pipeline could appear to provide it with a financial interest in seeing that the Bradwood Landing LNG Project gets approved,” he said. “The Commission’s ethics counsel has determined that additional measures are necessary as mitigation to allow the FERC to assure the public that work is being carried out in an impartial manner.”

FERC called for NRG to take several steps to provide for a “more defined separation of resources,” including:

“Currently, we understand that Steve Holden in the Providence [RI] office is assigned to both projects, and further, other personnel in the Minneapolis, Providence and Houston offices are assigned to both projects. Please provide documentation that Mr. Holden and other employees in the Providence and Houston offices of NRG were reassigned and will no longer work on the Bradwood Landing LNG Project, and that no other employees of the Minneapolis office would work on the Palomar project,” FERC’s Hoffman wrote.

NorthernStar LLC, developer of the proposed Bradwood Landing LNG terminal (see Daily GPI, July 2), may elect to take capacity on Palomar should the terminal and pipeline be constructed.

Palomar is a joint venture between TransCanada PipeLines and the local distribution utility, NW Natural Gas, which has been proposing to build some version of Palomar for years to overcome the fact that there is only one major pipeline bringing gas supplies into its system (see Daily GPI, Aug. 7).

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