The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission cancelled a contract with engineer-contractor Burns & McDonnell for an independent environmental assessment of a $142.7-million natural gas transmission project in Virginia after discovering the firm also was the engineer for a separate project on the same pipeline owned by a U.S. unit of Canada-based energy giant TC Energy.
FERC said in a letter last month to Houston-based Columbia Gas Transmission that agency staff identified an “organizational conflict of interest” related to Burns & McDonnell’s contract for a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) assessment of the energy firm’s Virginia Electrification Project.