The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
A Texas-based natural gas pipeline company has asked a federal agency to reinstate its authorization for the company’s 3-state pipeline project that includes a large compressor station in the township.
The petition for reinstatement of a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for the project, called the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project, or NESE, was sent to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company (Transco), a subsidiary of the Houston, Texas-based Williams Companies, on May 29.
The filing comes about 13 months after the company said it was shelving the project following the denial of water permits by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Transco’s action drew a quick response from the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters’ Executive Director, Ed Potosnak.
“We’re prepared to stop the unneeded, expensive and dangerous polluting Transco project which was denied previously— in New York,” Potosnak, who is also a Township Councilmember said in a release. “The denial was unequivocal ‘with prejudice’ for failing to meet public health and safety requirements.”
“This is all part of (Pres. Donald) Trump’s plan to enrich his billionaire friends and campaign donors,” Potosnak said in the release. “Any elected official or agency that approves of the construction of the expensive and unneeded NESE pipeline project is supporting lining the pockets of oil and gas CEOs and does not care about the health and safety of the communities that they serve.”
Transco’s action comes in the wake of two recent executive orders issued by Pres. Donald Trump, and a reported deal between New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul and Trump.
Under the deal, reported in several industry publications (such as here and here), Hochul agreed to drop the state’s opposition to two of Transco’s pipeline projects – including NESE – in return for the Trump Administration removing a stop-work order on an offshore wind project planned off the coast of Long Island.
That stop-work order was lifted earlier this month.
Trump’s executive orders declared a national energy emergency and also called for natural gas market domination by the United States.
Transco asked FERC to reissue the certificate by August 29 so that it may begin construction by the end of the year, and have the project operational by November 2027.
The $927 million project, which stretches from Pennsylvania, through New Jersey and into New York, is expected to serve the company’s New York customers.
The project includes building a 32,000-horsepower natural-gas powered twin turbine compressor station – which would raise the gas pressure in pipelines so the gas can make it to its final destination – on a 52-acre tract in Little Rocky Hill, near Route 518.
The compressor station plan incited opposition from a variety of group’s and town governments, including Franklin’s.
In its May 29 application, Transco estimates that work on the compressor station will begin roughly at the end January, and run through roughly the beginning of October, with the bulk of the construction occurring between February and September.
The company’s plans call for 6-day, 10-hours-per-day workweeks. Equipment to be used includes cranes, forklifts, air compressors, and excavators.
Transco estimates that it will move 51,686 tons of soil.
Transco was not shy about tying its application to Trump’s executive orders.
“President Trump’s executive orders ‘Declaring a National Energy Emergency’ and ‘Unleashing American Energy’ make clear that agencies, including FERC, have been directed to support infrastructure development, particularly in the northeastern United States where the NESE Project will enhance reliability, flexibility, and efficiency on a critical part of Transco’s system and provide access to crucial supplies of natural gas,” Transco wrote. “Prompt reissuance of the certificate for the NESE Project would accomplish many of the goals of the President’s executive orders.”
“President Trump’s executive orders make clear the NESE Project is more important than ever,” Transco wrote in the petition. “Executive Order 14154, ‘Unleashing American Energy,’ directs agency heads to
‘use all possible authorities, including emergency authorities, to expedite the adjudication
of Federal permits’ for ‘any project . . . deem[ed] essential for the Nation’s economy or
national security.’
“In addition, the Executive Order requires the White House Director of the National Economic Council and the Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs to prepare recommendations to ‘facilitate the permitting and construction of interstate energy transportation and other critical energy infrastructure, including, but not limited to, pipelines, particularly in regions of the Nation that have lacked such development in recent years,’ the petition reads. “The NESE Project, which is designed to serve a pipeline-constrained area of the country where LDCs are seeking greater and more diverse natural gas supplies, neatly fits that bill.”
“More to the point, Executive Order No. 14156, ‘Declaring a National Energy Emergency,’ highlights how ‘dangerous State and local policies’ in the Northeast ‘jeopardize our Nation’s core national defense and security needs, and devastate the prosperity of not only local residents but the entire United States population,’ Transco wrote. “Therefore, the Executive Order directs agencies to ‘identify and use all relevant lawful emergency and other authorities available to them to expedite the completion of all authorized and appropriated infrastructure.’ That is what this Petition seeks to accomplish.”
“Transco recognizes that this is a novel Petition to the Commission,” the petition reads. “Despite strong customer demand, expressed market for the Project, and numerous reliability and supply benefits for the Project, through no fault of its own Transco was forced to abandon plans for the Project just one year ago. This strong demand still exists. Transco requests the Commission reinstate the certificate for the NESE Project to allow it to pursue the Project and begin construction as soon as possible.”
Transco said in its petition that the project would “immediately improve the resiliency and reliability of gas service to residential and commercial loads—and help to reduce gas prices—in New York City,
including during peak demand days.”
“The need for the Project remains,” Transco wrote in its petition. “Market conditions have not changed—except that the need for energy supply in the Northeast has become even more urgent—in the year since the deadline to place the Project into service lapsed.”
Transco said in its petition that “existing gas infrastructure in New York is unable to meet the demand for most electric generators during a cold snap. While many generators in downstate New York—where the Project is intended to serve—are dual-fuel capable, very few electric generators have
firm transportation entitlements, exposing electric generation to risk in the event of an extreme weather event or a pipeline outage.”
Writing about the Franklin Township compressor station site, Transco said it “has all the permanent rights needed to construct and operate the Project, except in two discrete locations. In order to minimize Project impacts on landowners and communities, Transco evaluated 20 potential sites for the location of the new Compressor Station 206. The preferred site was chosen based on criteria such as property availability, access to electric power, pipeline hydraulics, land use and land development, site terrain, water table and storm water management, site accessibility, and potential impacts to nearby residences.”
“As the Commission noted in the Certificate Order, these steps appropriately minimized adverse impacts on landowners, as did the later amendment which was designed to address access to the new Compressor Station 206,” Transco wrote.
The company said in its petition that it is in talks with officials in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.
Links to the Transco documents are provided on the Township’s web site.
Stay ‘In the Know,’ subscribe to the Franklin Reporter & Advocate!
No other media outlet covering Franklin Township brings you the depth of information presented by the Franklin Reporter & Advocate. Period. We are the only truly independent media serving the Eight Villages.
But we can only do that with your support. Please consider a yearly subscription to our online news site; at $37 a year, it’s one of the best investments you can make for yourself.
To subscribe, please click here.
