NEWS: FERC wants to cut the red tape to fire up more natural gas.

The proposal: The agency is hoping to “overhaul and accelerate” its assessments of natural gas projects’ air quality impacts. How? By no longer requiring applicants to share their simulations of how pollutants spread through surrounding areas, and instead relying on other info submitted by developers. 

Why? This will bolster “our mission to cut unnecessary delays and deliver regulatory certainty,” FERC Chairman Laura Swett said in a statement.

The pushback: This shift would leave FERC with “insufficient information about the severity of potential local air quality and human-health effects,” FERC Commissioner Judy Chang wrote in her dissent. She also claimed it would “deny the public an in-depth understanding of the extent of a project’s emissions and whether adverse impacts from those emissions will reach their communities.”

The throughline: The proposal fits into Chairman Swett’s push to streamline the agency’s reviews of natural gas infrastructure, which she views as key to energy affordability.