Public Citizen Challenges Effort by SoftBank Group to Create Loophole for Natural Gas Exports
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Public Citizen today urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reject petitions by two affiliates of the Japanese financial conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp. to exempt their U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects from FERC oversight. Granting the petitions would eviscerate the commission’s authority to regulate natural gas exports. Read Public Citizen’s protest here. Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program, released the following statement:
“Granting these petitions would incentivize the natural gas industry to develop separate but financially and logistically connected interstate liquid natural gas facilities to evade rules under the Natural Gas Act. The requests that directly affiliated LNG export operations should be exempt from FERC oversight is wrong.”