A recent vote of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) may have come out favorably for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), but 3-2 wins like this for midstream companies will likely become a much rarer commodity this summer. The split vote, which was along party lines, as is usually the case, upheld a decision to allow partial resumption of construction near the Jefferson National Forest in Appalachia, staving off efforts to overturn a December ruling. That the pivotal decision by FERC came when it did proved to be fortuitous for the developers of the 303-mile (488-km) pipeline from West Virginia to southern Virginia - almost as much as the outcome itself. I say this because, in June, Republican Commissioner Neil Chatterjee's term comes to an end at FERC, and the Biden administration is poised to replace him with a Democrat, swinging the majority back the other direction. That new less-midstream friendly majority could prove to be significant in the coming year as approvals for oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure come up. Additionally, potential changes to the minimum offer-price rule have increasingly broken along party lines recently.
展开▼
