The NAM filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the Spire STL pipeline’s petition for review seeking to overturn the D.C. Circuit’s vacatur of Spire’s operational authority which threatens drastic and unpredictable disruptions in natural gas service for residential and commercial customers alike. This case began as a challenge to the Spire STL’s legal authority. Rather than remanding the case to the district court for further proceedings, the D.C. Circuit took the extreme step of vacating Spire’s certificate to operate from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)—risking the reliable supply of natural gas to the entire St. Louis region—without fully considering the potential ramifications of its actions.
The NAM’s brief explains that millions of Americans depend on the predictable, disruption-free supply of natural gas from interstate pipelines. When supply is unexpectedly interrupted, so too are the critical industrial and manufacturing processes that depend directly on natural gas or indirectly on the electricity that generators supply. The D.C. Circuit’s flawed approach in this case eliminates disruption as a factor weighing against vacatur of an operational pipeline’s FERC certificate. Review is especially imperative here because the D.C. Circuit hears an outsized majority of administrative law cases, including challenges to FERC actions. Unfortunately, on April 18, 2022, the Court denied cert.