Kathy Castor: “Under H.R. 1900, if an agency cannot complete its review of a gas pipeline permit application by the bill's arbitrary…”

“Under H.R. 1900, if an agency cannot complete its review of a gas pipeline permit application by the bill's arbitrary 90-day or, in some cases, 120-day deadline, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, is required to automatically issue the permit. This permitting provision broadly applies to the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, and rights-of-way through Federal lands. It simply goes too far, is completely unreasonable, and it runs counter to the author's intent. The intent of the author is to speed the approval of interstate natural gas pipelines. Instead, what this provision will do, if my amendment is not adopted, is create greater delays and, I believe, greater likelihood of litigation that will delay our important natural gas infrastructure in this country. So my amendment is straightforward. It simply strikes this provision that requires FERC to automatically issue other agencies' permits. You heard Mr. Waxman say--and I said the same thing--that what this bill does is turns FERC, whose jurisdiction is limited to reviewing interstate electric transmission lines, natural gas pipelines, and oil pipelines, into a superpermitting agency. It goes and grabs EPA's jurisdiction and authority, the Interior Department's, the Army Corps of Engineers', and other agencies', and settles into FERC this superpermitting authority that really is completely unreasonable.…”