PSEG files with FERC to stop pipeline project

• Tom Johnson/NJ Spotlight
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  Tom Johnson is the energy and environment reporter for NJ Spotlight. He is a journalist with more than 30 years of experience in reporting and editing at New Jersey newspapers. A veteran reporter for The Newark Star-Ledger, Johnson worked in the Statehouse and in Newark covering energy, environmental and telecommunications issues. Before that he served as editor of the Ridgewood Newspapers and a reporter and editor at the Herald-News. A recipient of many state and national journalism honors, including recognition by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for coverage of the environment, he was a member of the Star-Ledger’s nationally award-winning business section. After leaving the Ledger in early 2009, he served as press secretary to the Daggett Campaign for Governor. He lives in Plainfield, N.J. tjohnson@njspotlight.com

From NJ Spotlight
Public Service Enterprise Group, New Jersey’s largest electricity supplier, is trying to block a plan to expand a natural-gas pipeline in New England, arguing it will unreasonably suppress prices in the electricity market there.
In a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, PSEG companies contend that the move, initiated by four states in the region, is not driven by reliability needs and that the gas would be rarely used by the utilities that would own the pipeline.
“It’s purely a scheme to suppress wholesale power prices,’’ the company argued in a filing with the federal agency last month. The case is “virtually indistinguishable’’ from a previous case before FERC involving New Jersey’s efforts to subsidize new power plant construction in the state, an effort struck down by both the agency and the U.S. Supreme Court, the filing said.
The filing, however, caught the interest of critics of the proposed PennEast pipeline, a 118-mile conduit from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. They argue that PSEG advances many of the same arguments opponents have made about that proposal, including supplying pipeline capacity far in excess of what is demanded by the marketplace. Continue reading at NJ Spotlight.

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