500 miles of pipeline to serve data center demand faces legal battle

Credit: The Southern Environmental Law Center

Section Branding

Header Content

500 miles of pipeline to serve data center demand faces legal battle

Primary Content

LISTEN: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approves gas pipeline projects according to public need, but one lawsuit says two pipelines delivering gas to the Southeast fails to meet that requirement. GPB's Jillian Magtoto reports.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved 500 miles of pipelines this summer from Mississippi to Georgia.

Now, it’s being sued for its decision.

One of North America’s largest petroleum transportation companies, Kinder Morgan plans to build two pipelines across the Southeast. Combined, the $5.2 billion projects will add 3.4 billion cubic feet of methane gas daily for utilities including Dominion Energy and Southern Company. That’s enough to power about 21 million U.S. households per day.

But a suit filed last week by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on behalf of several nonprofits and landowners argues this demand is grossly overestimated, according to an analysis by Toronto-based consulting firm London Economics International.

The report estimates the pipelines will dole out over four times more than what the utilities’ publicly available forecasts show, largely driven by speculative demand from future data center projects.

Per the rules of the Natural Gas Act, FERC’s approval of gas pipeline projects hinges on the public’s present and future needs.

"We think FERC authorized these projects unlawfully," SELC Senior Attorney Megan Gibson said. "There is evidence of plausible self-dealing with a lot of these contracts that perhaps were not ... subject to [FERC's] standard arm's length negotiations that would demonstrate a market need."

Kinder Morgan refused to comment.

"We don’t comment on meritless litigation," Kinder Morgan Director of Corporate Communications Melissa Ruiz wrote in an email.

Support Local Journalism

GPB believes that everyone should have access to trustworthy, fact-based stories that connect them to their community and outward to the wider world. Your donation will help us in our efforts to unite and uplift Georgia.

GPB is vital. Always educational, essential, inspiring and grounding. So happy to be a supporter.