Williams Cos. faces another environmental challenge over the federal government’s recent decision authorizing the company’s extension of a natural gas pipeline in North Carolina and other states.
The Southern Environmental Law center along with the Sierra Club filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reconsider their January decision authorizing a pipeline that would begin in Pittsylvania County in Virginia.
“The exorbitant cost of this project will be stuck in ratepayers’ wallets for decades, even if data center load projections diminish. FERC needs to take in the entire picture of evolving load uncertainty within the context of captive, powerless ratepayers and grant this request for rehearing,”said Shelley Hudson Robbins, Senior Decarbonization Manager at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “The stakes are simply too high right now to double down on expensive methane infrastructure.”
“FERC’s decision reads like it was written by the applicant, Transco: accept the utility narrative without question, arbitrarily dismiss or completely disregard any contrary evidence, and move construction forward before the agency process is even complete and parties have access to any potential relief from the courts. That’s why we’re asking the commission to reconsider its authorization, stop construction, and follow the law,”said Megan C. Gibson, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “FERC should rescind its notice to proceed immediately and fix these errors before communities and landowners suffer irreversible damage.”
A Sierra Club official made much the same argument against the FERC decision.
“FERC disregarded the facts by approving this unnecessary pipeline,”said Caroline Hansley, Sierra Club’s Campaign Organizing Strategist. “By ignoring expert evidence, community concerns, and basic legal standards, FERC has placed the burden of paying for SSEP on everyday families, while allowing pipeline companies and utilities to rake in profits. FERC must rehear this case to uphold its duty.”
The two groups also alleged that FERC authorized this gas expansion by treating private agreements between Transco and electric utilities as enough to determine the public need of SSEP, while arbitrarily disregarding credible evidence to the contrary. Based on the available evidence, long-term demand for this massive amount of new capacity may not materialize as Transco and its shippers have projected. Most of the project’s capacity is tied to power plants with Duke Energy, Southern Company Services, and others, whose captive customers may ultimately bear costs through utilities’ rate structures. The request for rehearing points out that the landscape is filled with incentives to over-contract for new pipeline capacity, even when long-term need is uncertain.
The rehearing request, they further charged, also points to evidence FERC had available showing that utility load-growth projections—particularly projections driven by data center demand—are highly uncertain and may be inflated by duplicative, non-binding requests for electric service (“phantom load”). FERC arbitrarily dismissed this evidence documenting that data center developers routinely submit duplicate requests across multiple jurisdictions to preserve optionality and gain leverage.
The Southeast Supply Enhancement Project, or SSEP, is planned to transport gas from an existing Transco station into North Carolina and other points throughout the south. Williams Cos., based in Tulsa, plans to have it in service by the end of 2027.
The Southern Environmental Law center and the Sierra Club asked FERC for a rehearing, claiming the commission was wrong in finding that Transco had demonstrated a market need for the project. The groups also contended FERC’s decision was based on economic predictions that might have overestimated the demand for more natural gas.
Williams’ Southeast Supply Enhancement Project will run parallel along another pipeline called MVP Southgate. The Southgate project was approved by FERC last December. It would run 31 miles along a similar path as SSEP.