Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) has called on FERC to holdoff final action on the hotly-contested Independence Pipeline andMarketLink expansion projects, citing problems with the Commissionstaff’s final environmental impact statement (FEIS) that found bothto be acceptable.

In related action, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitmanthreatened to take legal action if FERC awards a certificate nextweek to the MarketLink expansion, which is widely opposed bylandowners in the state. “I am directing the attorney general to beprepared to take legal action in the event that the [Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission] grants a permit for the pipeline,” she saidin a prepared statement.

FERC has scheduled a vote on the Independence and MarketLinkprojects at its regular meeting next Wednesday. This would be lessthan 10 days after Commission staff issued its FEIS that declaredthe projects to be environmentally acceptable. The two projectswould ship Canadian gas from the Midwest to East Coast markets.

Such a short span between the FEIS and a final vote is unheardof, Tetco told FERC [CP97-315, CP98-540]. It “would beinappropriate for the Commission to act upon theIndependence/MarketLink projects based upon the Nov. 12 FEIS. Theproper action…..to take is to hold substantive Commission actionon this matter in abeyance until a supplemental FEIS is prepared.”

Tetco was obviously disappointed with the FEIS, which it called”fundamentally and fatally flawed,” because it rejected thepipeline’s proposed alternatives under which it sought to leasecapacity to Independence and MarketLink in lieu of newconstruction. Tetco maintained it had enough turned-back capacityon its system to meet the needs of Independence customers and partof the needs of the MarketLink customers.

Commission staff dismissed Tetco’s proposed alternatives becauseit said they weren’t good substitutes for Independence andMarketLink, weren’t well thought out, hadn’t been formally filed atFERC and were based on “speculative” projections for turned-backcapacity. But Tetco contends it, in fact, had presented “‘detailedenvironmental and engineering information,’ as well as economic andoperational data, which demonstrates that the lease alternative isfeasible and economically and environmentally superior to theconstruction of certain of the proposed new facilities.”

FERC staff has an “affirmative obligation to developalternatives,” Tetco said. “A possible alternative cannot berejected because a proposal has been made by a third party orbecause that party has failed to meet a non-existent burden ofproof.”

But even more serious, “the FEIS rejects the Texas Eastern leasealternative because it allegedly cannot meet the project ‘goals’ ofproviding capacity of one Bcf per day of transportation servicefrom Chicago to Leidy or being placed in service by the fall of2000…..The FEIS says that, unless the Texas Eastern alternativecan replicate precisely what is proposed by the project sponsors,that it cannot be considered a ‘reasonable’ alternative. The lawis, however, to the contrary. The Commission has an affirmativeobligation to consider partial alternatives,” Tetco said.

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