On September 5, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit ("Third Circuit" or "Court")
found that FERC did not violate federal law when approving
Transcontinental Pipe Line Company, LLC's ("Transco")
Garden State Expansion Project ("Project"). The Third
Circuit did, however, determine that the New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection ("NJDEP") improperly denied
requests for adjudicatory hearings on the issuance of various
permits for the Project because the NJDEP misinterpreted the
Natural Gas Act ("NGA"). As such, the Third Circuit
remanded back the permit issue so that NJDEP could reconsider those
requests.
Under the Project, Transco proposed to add 180,000 dekatherms
per day of capacity from its Mainline to its Trenton-Woodbury
Lateral in New Jersey. The New Jersey Natural Gas company
("NJNG") contracted with Transco to use all of the
Project's capacity. In anticipation of obtaining the
Project's capacity, NJNG proposed to build the
