He noted that the commission is only supposed to approve projects that show “market need,” so that existing customers are not subsidizing construction that won’t benefit them. The federal appeals court blasted the approval, with Judge Harry Edwards writing the commission “ignored record evidence of self-dealing and failed to seriously and thoroughly conduct the interest-balancing required” to decide if the pipeline was in the public interest. In 2018, FERC approved the plan and the pipeline was built. Spire Missouri would pay Spire STL to transport gas, charge its customers for the cost and a 10% to 14% rate of return. Spire Missouri sought to contract with an affiliated company, Spire STL Pipeline LLC, to build a $220 million, 65-mile-long pipeline from a hub in Illinois to St. This was noted by a federal appeals court judge in a June 2021 opinion that ruled the pipeline never should have received federal approval. Louis area and Spire had passed up chances for contracts with other proposed pipelines. In 2016 when Spire sought approval for the new pipeline, there were five existing natural gas pipelines serving the St. Spire did not provide an interview or answers to emailed questions for this story. “I can’t afford to fix my thermostat, and convert my house heater into an electric one, so the gas wall heater is the only thing keeping this disabled person from freezing to death this winter,” said one note.
Some customers clearly did see the challenge to the pipeline permit as an attack on natural gas, as shown by messages sent to the Environmental Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Illinois landowners in the pipeline’s path that led to the court decision. “It’s part of a larger strategy of Spire and the gas industry.” “The (STL) pipeline is part of the industry’s larger goal of putting infrastructure in the ground to make it harder to make the necessary transition, the transition we have to make if we are going to battle catastrophic climate change, away from their very dangerous product, methane gas,” said Michael Berg, Missouri Sierra Club political director. Clean energy advocates say rather than building new pipelines and natural gas infrastructure, the state should be investing in energy efficiency, electrification and renewable electricity generation that can replace natural gas.Īs they see it, Spire was hoping to build public support for natural gas by stirring up emotions over the pipeline permit even though there was virtually no chance FERC would order the pipeline shut down during the winter. Louis area is projected to remain flat or decline, as filings by Spire and its opponents have acknowledged. The temporary resolution, though, will do little to settle a broader if lower-profile debate simmering in the state over the role of natural gas.ĭemand for natural gas in the St. The claims have prompted rebuke from clean energy advocates and elected officials who say the utility is needlessly and disingenuously spreading alarm and fueling threats against an environmental organization.Īs the back-and-forth reached a fever pitch last week, a development Thursday at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pointed to a likely extension of the pipeline’s emergency permit, cooling the issue for now. Louis-area natural gas customers that they might go without heat this winter, all because of a legal challenge to a pipeline one of its affiliate companies built in 2018. Spire Missouri has spent weeks telling its St.