For the third time since June, a federal appeals court is questioning regulators’ evaluation of a natural gas project. On Nov. 1 in a lawsuit against the planned Jordan Cove liquified natural gas plant and export terminal in Oregon and a 229-mile feeder line from Canada, the Washington D.C. appellate court ordered the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to decide whether to suspend its 2020 approval of the $10-billion project.
After FERC approved the project in March 2020 and again two months later in a rehearing, landowner plaintiffs affected by it asked the appellate court to review the the agency decision. Among other issues, they asked the court to determine whether the FERC unlawfully granted a certificate of “public necessity” under the U.S. Constitution to an export-only LNG plant.