On Wednesday, March 29, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (
FERC) is hosting a so-called Environmental
Justice
Forum
throughout the day. Because we don’t think that the
FERC forum will produce the results frontline
advocates require nor was the event organized to ensure frontline and
community-based organizations were truly respected, heard, and included,
we’re hosting our own Peoples’ Environmental Justice Roundtable from
5-7p at Busboys & Poets, 450 K St NW, in Washington, DC and online to
uplift the voices of communities that are impacted everyday by
FERC’s decisions (food and music 5-6p, panel
from 6-7p).
At the Peoples’ EJ
Roundtable,
we’ll spotlight the amazing work happening to challenge the rush to
build new LNG and pipelines led by people from
frontline communities who are building toward a future without
LNG. Leaders will speak about their
communities and will have space to reflect on what occurred during the
day at the FERC event. Come enjoy great music,
food, and conversation as we work toward a day where
FERC is an agency that centers climate and
environmental justice in its decision making.
Please join
us
to listen to and support our frontline leaders.
If your organization is interested in crossposting the livestream,
please email [email protected]
This Commissioner-led
roundtable
will provide an opportunity for the Commissioners and staff to engage
with environmental justice community members, advocates, researchers,
industry representatives, and government leaders on actions the
Commission can take to better incorporate environmental justice and
equity considerations into its decisions.
This discussion will strengthen the Commission’s efforts to identify and
address adverse impacts associated with permitting applications for
hydroelectric, natural gas pipeline, liquified natural gas, and electric
transmission infrastructure subject to FERC
jurisdiction. This roundtable will help further the goals of the
Commission’s Equity Action Plan, which include reducing barriers to
meaningful participation faced by underserved communities and ensuring
that the Commission’s natural gas and hydroelectric policies and
processes are consistent with environmental justice principles.
Time
Details
9:30 am – 9:45 am
Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:45 am – 11:15 am
Panel 1: Priorities for Advancing Environmental Justice and Equity in
Infrastructure Permitting
As the Commission continues to advance its consideration of
environmental justice and equity concerns in its infrastructure
permitting proceedings, this panel will discuss how the Commission can
better integrate and advance environmental justice and equity principles
in its decision-making. The panel may include a discussion of the
following questions:
What should the Commission prioritize as it more fully integrates
environmental justice and equity considerations into its
infrastructure permitting proceedings?
What lessons can the Commission learn from other federal and state
agencies and tribes to better avoid and minimize negative
environmental, health, and socioeconomic impacts to historically
overburdened communities?
How can the Commission better integrate environmental justice and
equity considerations into its efforts to enhance the safety and
reliability of the infrastructure it authorizes?
Panelists:
Shalanda Baker, U.S. Department of Energy, Director of the Office of
Economic Impact and Diversity
Darcie L. Houck, California Public Utilities Commission, Commissioner
Ben Jealous, Sierra Club, Executive Director
Dana Johnson, WE ACT, Senior Director of
Strategy and Federal Policy
Paul Lau, SMUD, CEO and General Manager
Julie Nelson, Cheniere, Senior Vice President, Policy, Government and
Public Affairs
Matthew Tejada, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Environmental Justice, Office of Environmental Justice
and External Civil Rights
11:15 am – 11:30 am
Break
11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Panel 2: From the Front-Line: Impacted Communities and their Challenges
During this panel, Commissioners will engage with members and
representatives of overburdened communities impacted by
FERC-jurisdictional infrastructure about the
environmental justice challenges they face. The panel may include a
discussion of the following questions:
Location-Specific Impacts:
Please describe your community and any environmental injustices you
may have experienced, either directly or indirectly.
When assessing the impacts of
FERC-jurisdictional infrastructure
projects, what topics or areas of concern should the Commission more
fully address or emphasize during our infrastructure permitting
proceedings?
How can the Commission best facilitate engagement between local
communities and industry during the earliest stages of the project
planning process to avoid or reduce negative impacts, develop local
community benefits, and implement community input with respect to
other areas of concern?
What are ways the Commission can strengthen its analysis of local
impacts without placing an undue burden of producing additional
information on environmental justice communities?
Meaningful Engagement:
How can the Commission and industry better assure that stakeholders’
input in infrastructure application proceedings was received,
reviewed, and addressed in environmental review documents and the
Commission’s decisions?
In many cases, the Commission requires infrastructure applicants,
certificate holders, or licensees to develop plans to protect public
safety (such as Emergency Response Plans for liquified natural gas
facilities). What steps should the Commission and industry take to
provide opportunities for public participation targeted at ensuring
community needs are evaluated during the development,
implementation, and modification of such plans?
In addition to project-specific engagement, how else should the
Commission work with local communities to improve the Commission’s
infrastructure permitting processes and help connect communities to
resources that support community participation in our proceedings?
Panelists:
Russell Armstrong, Hip Hop Caucus, Policy Director for Climate and
Environment
John Beard, Port Arthur Community Action Network, Founder, President,
and Executive Director
Amy Cordalis, Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group,
Co-Principal
Kari Fulton, Center for Oil and Gas Organizing, Climate Justice Policy
Advocate and Educator
Roishetta Ozane, The Vessel Project of Louisiana, Founder, Director,
CEO
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Lunch
Lunch will not be provided.
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Panel 3: Identifying, Avoiding, and Addressing Environmental Justice
Impacts
This panel will discuss how infrastructure applicants, the Commission,
and its staff can better identify, avoid, and minimize adverse impacts
on environmental justice communities. The panel may include a discussion
of the following questions:
Cumulative Impacts:
What lessons can the Commission learn from other federal and state
agencies, environmental justice communities, industry, and subject
matter experts on how to better identify, minimize, and avoid
cumulative impacts in environmental justice communities particularly
with respect to human health and climate change?
How can the Commission best consider factors that increase the
intensity of cumulative impacts on environmental justice
communities?
Identifying, Minimizing, and Avoiding Impacts:
How can the Commission better assess and characterize direct and
indirect impacts as well as past, current, and future cumulative
impacts and the vulnerability or resiliency of a community?
What guidance can the Commission provide to infrastructure project
developers to help avoid or reduce negative impacts from new
infrastructure development in environmental justice communities that
are already overburdened? What indicators and thresholds should the
Commission use to appropriately and accurately identify such
communities early in the project development process?
How can Commission staff make better use of local, state, and
region-specific impact information and community knowledge when
conducting an impact assessment and developing methods to avoid and
minimize potential impacts?
Panelists:
Aram Benyamin, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Chief
Operating Officer
Uni Blake, American Petroleum Institute, Senior Policy Advisor
Gina Dorsey, Kinder Morgan, Director,
EHS-Project Permitting, Operations Support
Group
Al Huang, Institute for Policy Integrity, NYU
School of Law, Director of Environmental Justice & Senior Attorney
Dr. Beth Rose Middleton Manning, UC Davis, Professor of Native American
Studies
Carolyn L. Nelson, P.E., U.S. Department of Transportation, Director of
Environmental Policy & Justice Division
The staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or
Commission) invites you to attend one of the virtual public comment
meetings
it will conduct by telephone on the Line 200 and Line 300 Project draft
environmental impact statement.
Driftwood proposes to construct and operate dual 42-inch-diameter
natural gas pipelines originating near the town of Ragley in Beauregard
Parish, Louisiana southward to a proposed receiver facility near the
town of Carlyss in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana.
The FERC staff
concludes
that construction and operation of the Project would result in some
adverse environmental impacts. Most of these impacts would be temporary
and occur during construction (e.g., impacts on land use, traffic, and
noise). With the exception of climate change impacts, that are not
characterized in this EIS as significant or
insignificant, we conclude that Project effects would not be significant
based on implementation of Driftwood’s impact avoidance, minimization,
and mitigation measures, as well as their adherence to our
recommendations. Other than the non-significant impacts on environmental
justice communities associated with the construction and operation of
Meter Station 7 and Meter Station 9, we conclude that the Project would
not result in disproportionately high or adverse impacts on
environmental justice communities.
Note that the comment
meetings
will start at 5:30 pm (CST) and will terminate once all participants
wishing to comment have had the opportunity to do so, or at 7:30 pm
(CST), whichever comes first. The primary goal of these comment meetings
is to have you identify the specific environmental issues and concerns
that should be considered in the final environmental impact statement.
Individual oral comments will be taken on a one-on-one basis with a
court reporter present on the line. This format is designed to receive
the maximum amount of oral comments, in a convenient way during the
timeframe allotted, and is in response to the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic.
As a reminder, the Commission encourages electronic filing of comments
and has staff available to assist you at (866) 208-3676 or
[email protected]. Please carefully follow these instructions
so that your comments are properly recorded.
You can file your comments electronically using the eComment feature on
the Commission’s website (www.ferc.gov) under the link to
FERC Online. This is an easy method for
submitting brief, text-only comments on a project; You can file your
comments electronically by using the eFiling feature on the Commission’s
website (www.ferc.gov) under the link to FERC
Online. With eFiling, you can provide comments in a variety of formats
by attaching them as a file with your submission. New eFiling users must
first create an account by clicking on “eRegister.” If you are filing a
comment on a particular project, please select “Comment on a Filing” as
the filing type; and You can file a paper copy of your comments by
mailing them to the Commission. Be sure to reference the project docket
number (CP21-465-000) on your letter. Submissions sent via the U.S.
Postal Service must be addressed to: Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary,
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street NE, Room 1A,
Washington, DC 20426. Submissions sent via any
other carrier must be addressed to: Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary, Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission, 12225 Wilkins Avenue, Rockville, Maryland
20852
FERC is hosting a scoping meeting for the Cat
Creek Energy pumped storage hydropower
project in Idaho (docket P-14655-002) from 10am-12:00pm Mountain Day
Light Time (MDT) (or 12pm to 2pm Eastern Standard Time).
Call in number: 800-779-8625
Participant Code: 3472916
The virtual meeting is preceded by a virtual site review.
At the scoping
meeting,
Commission staff will: (1) initiate scoping of the issues; (2) review
and discuss existing conditions; (3) review and discuss existing
information and identify preliminary information and study needs; (4)
review and discuss the process plan and schedule for pre-filing activity
that incorporates the time frames provided for in Part 5 of the
Commission’s regulations and, to the extent possible, maximizes
coordination of federal, state, and tribal permitting and certification
processes; and (5) discuss the potential of any federal or state agency
or Native American tribe to act as a cooperating agency for development
of an environmental document. Meeting participants should come prepared
to discuss their issues and/or concerns. Please review
CCE’s PAD in
preparation for the scoping meetings. Directions on how to obtain a copy
of the PAD and SD1
are included in this
document.
Southwestern Electric Cooperative, Inc.
v. Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc., Dynegy, Inc., and
Sellers of Capacity into Zone 4 of the 2015-2016 MISO Planning Resource Auction
FERC is hosting a scoping meeting for the Cat
Creek Energy pumped storage hydropower
project in Idaho (docket P-14655-002) from 7:00pm -9:00 pm Mountain Day
Light Time (MDT) (or 9:00pm to 11:00pm Eastern Standard Time).
Call in number: 800-779-8625
Participant Code: 3472916
The virtual meeting is preceded by a virtual site review.
At the scoping
meeting,
Commission staff will: (1) initiate scoping of the issues; (2) review
and discuss existing conditions; (3) review and discuss existing
information and identify preliminary information and study needs; (4)
review and discuss the process plan and schedule for pre-filing activity
that incorporates the time frames provided for in Part 5 of the
Commission’s regulations and, to the extent possible, maximizes
coordination of federal, state, and tribal permitting and certification
processes; and (5) discuss the potential of any federal or state agency
or Native American tribe to act as a cooperating agency for development
of an environmental document. Meeting participants should come prepared
to discuss their issues and/or concerns. Please review
CCE’s PAD in
preparation for the scoping meetings. Directions on how to obtain a copy
of the PAD and SD1
are included in this
document.
The staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or
Commission) invites you to attend one of the virtual public comment
meetings
it will conduct by telephone on the Line 200 and Line 300 Project draft
environmental impact statement.
Driftwood proposes to construct and operate dual 42-inch-diameter
natural gas pipelines originating near the town of Ragley in Beauregard
Parish, Louisiana southward to a proposed receiver facility near the
town of Carlyss in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana.
The FERC staff
concludes
that construction and operation of the Project would result in some
adverse environmental impacts. Most of these impacts would be temporary
and occur during construction (e.g., impacts on land use, traffic, and
noise). With the exception of climate change impacts, that are not
characterized in this EIS as significant or
insignificant, we conclude that Project effects would not be significant
based on implementation of Driftwood’s impact avoidance, minimization,
and mitigation measures, as well as their adherence to our
recommendations. Other than the non-significant impacts on environmental
justice communities associated with the construction and operation of
Meter Station 7 and Meter Station 9, we conclude that the Project would
not result in disproportionately high or adverse impacts on
environmental justice communities.
Note that the comment
meetings
will start at 5:30 pm (CST) and will terminate once all participants
wishing to comment have had the opportunity to do so, or at 7:30 pm
(CST), whichever comes first. The primary goal of these comment meetings
is to have you identify the specific environmental issues and concerns
that should be considered in the final environmental impact statement.
Individual oral comments will be taken on a one-on-one basis with a
court reporter present on the line. This format is designed to receive
the maximum amount of oral comments, in a convenient way during the
timeframe allotted, and is in response to the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic.
As a reminder, the Commission encourages electronic filing of comments
and has staff available to assist you at (866) 208-3676 or
[email protected]. Please carefully follow these instructions
so that your comments are properly recorded.
You can file your comments electronically using the eComment feature on
the Commission’s website (www.ferc.gov) under the link to
FERC Online. This is an easy method for
submitting brief, text-only comments on a project; You can file your
comments electronically by using the eFiling feature on the Commission’s
website (www.ferc.gov) under the link to FERC
Online. With eFiling, you can provide comments in a variety of formats
by attaching them as a file with your submission. New eFiling users must
first create an account by clicking on “eRegister.” If you are filing a
comment on a particular project, please select “Comment on a Filing” as
the filing type; and You can file a paper copy of your comments by
mailing them to the Commission. Be sure to reference the project docket
number (CP21-465-000) on your letter. Submissions sent via the U.S.
Postal Service must be addressed to: Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary,
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street NE, Room 1A,
Washington, DC 20426. Submissions sent via any
other carrier must be addressed to: Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary, Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission, 12225 Wilkins Avenue, Rockville, Maryland
20852
The open
meeting
will be held virtually. Members of the public may attend the open
session. Commissioners from both agencies are expected to participate.
All interested persons are invited to the open meeting. Pre-registration
is not required and there is no fee to attend this joint meeting.
Questions about the meeting should be directed to Lodie White at
[email protected] or by phone at (202) 502-8453.
Agenda
Introductions and Opening Statements
Grid Reliability, Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) & Other Topics
NERC
Howard Gugel, NERC, Vice President,
Engineering and Standards
State of Reliability
Long Term Reliability Assessment
Energy Reliability Assessment Task Force Q&A
FERC
Elin Katz, Director, Office of Public Participation
New initiative to assist the public navigating
FERC proceedings
David Ortiz, Acting Director of the Office of Electric Reliability
David Huff, Electrical Engineer, Office of Electric Reliability
Heather Polzin, Attorney Advisor, Office of Enforcement
Cold Weather Inquiry
NRC
Andrea Kock, Deputy Office Director for Engineering, Office of Nuclear
Reactor Regulation
Current Fleet of Operating Reactors
Advanced Reactors Update
Subsequent License Renewal
Decommissioning
Eric Benner, Director, Division of Engineering and External Hazards,
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
