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FERC “fully satisfied its obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)” in deciding the fate of Dominion Transmission Inc.’s New Market project last year, and an environmental group’s challenge should be denied, according to a brief filed by the regulatory agency in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC) Circuit.

FERC by a 3-2 vote has denied a request for rehearing of its April 2016 decision to issue a certificate of public convenience and necessity for Dominion Transmission Inc.’s New Market project, with the majority declaring that it will continue to take into account proposed pipelines’ potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but not their impacts on natural gas production and consumption.

The regulatory barrier that halted TransCanada Corp.’s Energy East pipeline conversion last year — blaming pipelines for cargo carbon emissions — would confront all future projects under legislation proposed Thursday by the Liberal government in Ottawa.

Amid a chorus of praise from California’s environmental and climate activist groups, California Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed into law two precedent-setting bills (SB 32 and AB 197) designed to accelerate the state’s reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by deemphasizing the burning of fossil fuels while increasing reliance on renewable energy, storage and efficiency.

Cheap natural gas is pushing New York and Massachusetts nuclear power generators to the sidelines and prompting plant closures. But helping them out with a subsidy — as New York is considering — would be an unfair intervention that would distort markets, natural gas interests said Monday.