Sponsors (5)
The bill increases climate and environmental-justice scrutiny of pipelines and gas projects—likely reducing pollution and protecting vulnerable communities—while imposing higher compliance burdens, longer review times, and greater uncertainty that could raise costs and affect near-term energy supply.
Residents in environmental-justice communities (racial-ethnic minorities, low-income individuals, and indigenous/tribal communities) will have their existing pollution burdens and health stressors formally evaluated during FERC reviews, increasing the chance their cumulative impacts are considered and addressed.
Projects with estimated lifecycle GHG emissions ≥100,000 tCO2e/year will be presumptively treated as having significant climate impacts and applicants must submit mitigation proposals, making high-emitting projects harder to approve without mitigation and increasing the likelihood of required emissions/pollution reductions.
Applicants must propose mitigation measures and FERC is required to weigh and explain environmental harms (including quantified GHGs) against project benefits, increasing transparency, accountability, and the chance approvals will include enforceable mitigation conditions.
Pipeline and gas project developers (including small businesses and energy workers) — and ultimately consumers (middle-class families, taxpayers) — are likely to face higher compliance costs and longer approval timelines, which can raise project costs and risk higher local energy prices or constrained near-term supply.
Uneven application of what mitigation is 'practicable' could generate litigation and regulatory uncertainty, increasing legal costs and producing unpredictable outcomes for developers, state and local governments, and affected communities.
Using a 20-year global warming potential (GWP) for non-CO2 gases makes short-lived climate pollutants count more heavily in reviews, which could bar or restrict projects based on near-term warming impacts even if long-term emissions are lower.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires FERC to quantify project GHGs, evaluate environmental-justice impacts, treat ≥100,000 tCO2e/yr as presumptively significant, and require mitigation proposals or conditions.
Introduced December 3, 2025 by Richard Joseph Durbin · Last progress December 3, 2025
Amends the Natural Gas Act to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to account for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and environmental justice impacts when deciding whether to issue pipeline and related natural gas project certificates. The Commission must quantify reasonably foreseeable GHG emissions using specified inputs, treat projects that emit at least 100,000 metric tons CO2-equivalent per year as presumptively significant (using IPCC 20-year GWP for non-CO2 gases), require applicants to submit mitigation proposals, and impose conditions where practicable or explain why mitigation to below the significance threshold is impracticable.