WASHINGTON (SELC) — Today, a group of directly impacted landowners and community advocacy and conservation organizations filed a lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for authorizing a pair of unnecessary, redundant, and costly methane gas pipeline projects that would harm communities and landscapes across Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of Alabama Rivers Alliance, Blackbelt Women Rising, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Energy Alabama, Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, Mississippi Rising Coalition, Ogeechee Riverkeeper, Savannah Riverkeeper, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and impacted landowners, appealed FERC’s authorization of the South System Expansion 4 (SSE4) and Mississippi Crossing (MSX) pipeline proposals at the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
“Our federal government should work for the public and only approve projects that are truly needed and in the public interest, not push through projects on behalf of gas industry proponents and affiliate monopoly utilities trying to cash in on projected data center growth,” said Megan Gibson, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “We can’t stand by and allow FERC to disregard its statutory obligations to the public by rubberstamping a reckless plan to overbuild expensive gas infrastructure in Southern communities.”
Click here for a map of the proposed pipelines.
Reports by both London Economics International and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis cast significant doubt on any alleged need for SSE4 and MSX on top of several other massive gas expansions approved and proposed in the South. The reports reveal that major utilities, including Southern Company affiliates Georgia Power, Alabama Power, Mississippi Power, Southern Power, and Atlanta Gas Light, have signed contracts for pipeline gas capacity that they do not actually need, and that highly speculative data center growth forecasts were behind the push for these excessive and expensive projects.
“FERC’s approval of the SSE4 Expansion and MSX pipeline projects do not serve the public interest and could contribute to a rise of electric bills for Alabamians,” said Sheree Martin, deputy director & general counsel for Energy Alabama. “Independent economic analysis demonstrated that additional pipeline capacity is not justified and that numerous opportunities for self-dealing between Southern Company affiliates exist. These projects are a perfect example of crony capitalism harming Alabamians for the benefit of Wall Street.”
At a breathtaking $5.2 billion estimated cost, which does not even include the substantial fuel costs paid for by utility customers, these pipelines would needlessly impact 18 river watersheds, places where people fish, swim, farm, and rely on for drinking water. In some communities, the pipelines will increase air pollution and expose communities to a greater risk of asthma, cancer, and heart attacks. Communities would also be exposed to possible gas leaks, and even potential explosions of combustible gas (which has already happened along one of the existing lines through Alabama). The pipelines also threaten habitat for rare and beloved wildlife. The affiliate pipeline developers are Southern Natural Gas (Kinder Morgan and Southern Company), Elba Express (Kinder Morgan), and Tennessee Gas Pipeline (Kinder Morgan).
“The question is simple – are we willing to sacrifice healthy rivers, wildlife habitat and the health of our communities for infrastructure we don’t need? Once a pipeline is built, the impacts don’t disappear. They become part of the landscape, part of the communities, every day after,” said Tonya Bonatatibus, executive director and riverkeeper for Savannah Riverkeeper. “This is amplified when that pipeline is built through the use of eminent domain. That’s when people lose land they never wanted to sell and are left with a permanent scar on the landscape and in their lives. We should be investing in solutions that protect our water, our communities and the future of this watershed instead of locking ourselves into decades of unnecessary risk.”
This is part of a much larger expansion of methane gas across the South at a time when cleaner options are increasingly available and often cheaper. Methane gas (called “natural” gas by the fossil fuel industry) is expensive and volatile, worsens our climate, and harms human health—especially in communities already overburdened by pollution. Utilities are proposing dozens of new gas-burning power plants in an attempt to attract energy-hungry data centers and the profits utilities can earn by building big, expensive projects on the backs of customers. Across six southern states, utilities have proposed adding 44,000 megawatts of new gas generation, dozens of new gas plants, by 2039. That’s roughly the amount of electricity that would be needed if the number of households nearly doubled (from 16 million to around 30 million). Much of these utilities’ projected data center demand is speculative — if not outright implausible.
Additional quotes from petitioners:
“These expensive, intrusive, destructive pipelines simply are not needed. Utilities and pipeline companies are trying to cash in on speculative data center hype to line shareholder pockets while hiding the true costs from the ratepayers who will be forced to pay for them,” said Shelley Robbins, senior decarbonization manager at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “Because these pipeline contracts are kept hidden from ratepayers, FERC had an obligation to do more than take Kinder Morgan’s and Southern Natural Gas Pipeline’s word, especially given how tangled up these companies and their utility subsidiaries are.”
“The approval of this unjustified expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure is a threat to dozens of waterways across Alabama, fragile aquatic species and dozens of communities throughout our state and neighboring states,” said Cindy Lowry, executive director of Alabama Rivers Alliance. “FERC is putting the interest of large corporations over the health of our people and the environment.”
“We’re tired of being invited to the table just to be left standing outside,” said Portia Shepherd, executive director of Blackbelt Women Rising. “There’s a reason why pipelines are trying to come to the Black Belt. They think those old empty promises will work. They’ve got another thing coming.”
“Communities across Mississippi have a right to be free from environmental harm that impacts their health and quality of life, especially if that harm comes from an unnecessary gas pipeline,” said Dr. Beverly Wright, founder and executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. “This pipeline threatens decades of progress across the Deep South, working alongside communities pushing back against the kind of environmental injustice this project would create.”
“The continued expansion of methane gas infrastructure across the South is in direct conflict with our call to care for our neighbors and our Common Home,” said Codi Norred, executive director of Georgia Interfaith Power & Light (GIPL). “Georgians deserve clean, affordable energy, not another pipeline they’ll pay for twice: once in their power bills and again with their health.”
“We can’t stand by while FERC continues to fail its mission and Mississippians,” said Lea Campbell, founding organizer and board member of Mississippi Rising Coalition. “The Mississippi Crossing methane pipeline is dangerous, expensive, and unnecessary.”
“The highly disruptive construction techniques proposed for this project could affect several sensitive wildlife species and important ecosystems in our basin, not only at the numerous locations where it will cross streams, wetlands, and the Ogeechee River, but also downstream for miles,” said Damon Mullis, executive director and riverkeeper for Ogeechee Riverkeeper. “It is important that we understand the impacts and do all we can to mitigate them.”
Media contact: Terah Boyd, SELC, 404-521-9900, tboyd@selc.org
