FERC Hits The Gas: New Proposals Aim To Speed LNG And Pipeline Approvals

On October 15, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) took two related steps to streamline natural gas infrastructure permitting under sections 3 and 7 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA). First, it issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) on Authorizations for Certain Activities at Liquefied Natural Gas Plants. The NOPR (Docket No. RM26-2-001), if finalized, would amend regulations implementing sections 3 and 7 of the NGA to create a three-tiered blanket authorization program for FERC-regulated liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. The proposals are intended to build on the record developed through FERC’s November 2025 Notice of Inquiry, which examined expedited approvals of certain routine replacements, upgrades and modest expansions of LNG terminals without the need for case-specific reviews and approvals.

Second, FERC published a Draft Policy Statement on Efficient Environmental Reviews of Natural Gas Project Applications. The Draft Policy Statement (Docket No. PL26-3-000) would separately end FERC’s routine requirement for operational air dispersion modeling from applicants seeking approval under NGA sections 3 and 7 for LNG facilities and pipeline compressor station projects, while retaining emissions disclosure, Clean Air Act (CAA) compliance, and project-specific environmental review. These models have been used by FERC to assess the “significance” of these projects’ air impacts on their immediate vicinity under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). FERC’s rationale for the Draft Policy Statement leans heavily on NEPA reforms in the 2023 BUILDER Act, discussed here, and the Supreme Court’s 2025 Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado (Seven County) decision, explained here. In an emphasis on the need to simplify its NEPA process, FERC distinguished its use of the models from those of environmental regulatory agencies that make substantive decisions about air emissions under the CAA. FERC continued to emphasize the need for CAA compliance while removing the models from its own critical path for NEPA compliance.

Key Gas Infrastructure Permitting Changes Proposed by FERC

Proposed LNG Plant Blanket Authorization Program

While FERC has been regulating LNG facilities for decades, until now it has never sought to create a blanket authorization or prior notice program for those facilities. It has maintained a case-specific program, both for the initial project permit, and to approve any future modifications, all subject to Parts 153 and 157 of its regulations. When FERC initiated a blanket review program for pipelines in the 1980s under section 7 of the NGA, it declined to extend it to LNG plant facilities on grounds that they were not “routine” and required more case-specific engineering, environmental and safety reviews. FERC reiterated this position in 2006.

The NOPR reverses course, announcing that since 2006, FERC has reviewed over 100 applications related to LNG facilities, generating a sufficient body of experience to quell its prior concerns. FERC acknowledges that its current case-by-case review process can be administratively inefficient and burdensome, especially for certain replacements, modifications and small expansions. To expedite and simplify the regulatory process, FERC proposes a three-tier system of Automatic Authorization projects, 60-day prior notice projects and 90-day prior notice projects depending on the scope of work required:

The proposal would also require notice to affected landowners and municipalities at least 45 days before most automatic-authorization construction, subject to specified exceptions, and generally within three business days from assignment of a docket number for a prior-notice request.

The proposals are modeled on the existing automatic authorization and prior notice rules for pipelines under Part 157 of FERC’s regulations, with certain key differences. Notably, there are no cost thresholds or caps for project eligibility. FERC does not deem costs to be an appropriate proxy for environmental or operational impacts in the LNG context. And, unless the facilities are rate regulated under NGA section 7, costs also are irrelevant. All larger LNG import and export terminals are subject only to NGA section 3, without regulated rates. FERC also proposes longer periods for projects to enter service. Whereas the pipeline program requires prior notice projects to be placed in service within one year, the NOPR proposes to give LNG projects five years to complete construction and enter service. In addition, while pipeline projects are subject to a two-tier program of blanket authorization and 60-day prior notice projects, the LNG program would add a third tier, recognizing that certain LNG projects require additional review time but could nonetheless proceed without a case-specific authorization. Another difference concerns notices to proceed with construction and operation. The pipeline program requires no notice to proceed once the prior notice period has ended, allowing construction and operation to begin without further FERC approval. By contrast, citing FERC’s safety oversight of LNG facilities, the LNG program would require a notice to proceed from the Office of Energy Projects before commissioning or the introduction of hazardous fluids, and again before the commencement of service. As under the pipeline program, a protest could convert a prior notice project to case-specific review, with FERC retaining the right to dismiss protests that fail to raise a substantive issue. The NOPR seeks comment on whether protestor eligibility criteria should be narrower and on the target timeline for resolving protests. Parallel reforms to the pipeline prior notice program are under review in Docket No. RM25-12 in a NOPR initiated earlier this year.

In order to be eligible for the blanket authorization program, holders of case-specific authorizations will need to apply to FERC, as opposed to being grandfathered into the program as industry commenters had urged. There also are additional changes for LNG plants holding NGA section 7 certificates. These facilities also would be eligible for receipt of a blanket authorization. Two years after the Final Rule’s effective date, these plants would lose access to their section 2.55 auxiliary and replacement authority, which was deemed superfluous in the event a blanket authorization is received.

The NOPR does not propose to create a new categorical exclusion under FERC’s NEPA implementation regulations for Blanket Authorization or Prior Notice LNG projects. Instead, it proposes that FERC will prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement for Blanket Authorization projects while Prior Notice projects will be permitted to argue why they are subject to an existing categorical exclusion, or provide sufficient information for FERC to perform an environmental assessment (EA). FERC currently prepares environmental assessments for certain pipeline prior notice projects within a 60-day period, and may need to prepare similar documents for LNG facilities in similarly tight timeframes.

Commissioner Judy Chang (D) issued a concurrence supporting the program but questioning the 90-day prior notice 25-acre limit proposal, noting that an additional 25 acres could accommodate an additional liquefaction train. She asks whether applicants should be required to affirmatively demonstrate no significant impact for previously unstudied areas and whether FERC should cap the number of expansions or set a minimum interval between them.

Proposed Draft Policy Statement

The Draft Policy Statement is framed as a way of rebalancing FERC’s NEPA review obligations in light of its statutory purpose as an economic regulator, and following directives from the Supreme Court in Seven County.

Under FERC’s current practice, applicants for LNG facility authorizations under NGA section 3 and for compressor station certificates of public convenience and necessity under NGA section 7 are instructed to follow FERC’s 2017 Guidance Manual for Environmental Report Preparation (Guidance Manual), which includes the preparation of a screening or refined air dispersion model, providing comparisons to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). FERC currently uses these results to assess a project’s air quality impacts under NEPA to decide whether they are “significant” enough to warrant an environmental impact statement in lieu of an EA. The Draft Policy Statement refers to this practice, which has effectively become mandatory for all applicable projects, as non-statutory and non-regulatory. It proposes to update its air emissions review in three principal ways:

• No routine modeling. FERC would no longer ordinarily seek air dispersion modeling from NGA applicants. Applicants may still voluntarily submit modeling prepared for state air permitting, and FERC would analyze it in the NEPA document.
• Emissions-based analysis. FERC Staff would instead quantify operational emissions using equipment-specific data, including emission factors for criteria pollutants, hazardous air pollutants and greenhouse gases, together with the manufacturer’s specifications and mitigation commitments applicants already provide. This mirrors FERC’s long-standing approach to construction emissions.
• CAA compliance as the significance benchmark. FERC proposes to assign CAA compliance as a proxy for NEPA review, stating that “a project with a valid CAA permit should not have significant impacts from its air emissions,” and that it is generally appropriate to find air effects less than significant where emissions are within CAA limits as reflected by compliance with all pertinent permitting and regulatory requirements.

Applicants would still need to obtain all required CAA permits to enter service and FERC will continue to disclose air effects in its NEPA documents and consider them as a subsidiary factor in its NGA public interest analysis. FERC also is proposing no change to its General Conformity review, which is an independent responsibility under the CAA, and primarily limited to consideration of construction emissions.

Commissioner Chang dissented from the Draft Policy Statement, arguing that the policy will leave FERC without adequate information on local air quality and human-health effects, that state permits focused on regional “state implementation plan” (SIP) compliance cannot substitute for NEPA review, that the change could complicate General Conformity determinations, and that orders implementing it will face “substantial appellate risk.” She also asserts that the comment period addresses only implementation rather than the merits of the policy. Her position prompted a concurrence by Chairman Laura Swett (R) defending the policy as one component of a broader effort to restore proportionality to NEPA review. Commissioner David Rosner (D) issued a separate concurrence that describes the change as a measured step and specifically invites comment on whether applicants should file in FERC’s docket the same materials they submit to state air regulators. To the broader majority, the air modeling primarily serves to foster costly litigation against project developers, with no material impact on FERC’s decisions to authorize the underlying projects. A handful of high-profile LNG terminal projects have experienced delays due to remands related to their air dispersion modeling.

How the Two FERC Actions Interact

The timing of the Draft Policy Statement, which was issued concurrently with the NOPR, suggests that FERC is cognizant of the limitations of applying its existing NEPA review process to the proposed blanket authorization scheme for LNG facilities. Prior notice LNG projects that increase operational emissions would receive an EA or categorical exclusion determination, and the Draft Policy Statement would govern the air analysis in those EAs. The combination could make a 60- or 90-day prior notice path materially more workable than if staff continued to require dispersion modeling. This is evident in the NOPR’s standard conditions, which require blanket activities that increase operational air emissions to comply with the CAA, air quality regulations and SIPs, consistent with the Draft Policy Statement’s reliance on CAA compliance as the touchstone for significance. Hence, both actions rest on the same premise: that FERC can rely on other expert regulators, including EPA and state air agencies while focusing its own review on matters central to its NGA decisions. This reliance mirrors concepts in the Senate’s Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA; S. 5653), unveiled September 30, 2026, which also emphasizes permitting agencies’ ability to rely on other agencies’ reviews, a narrowing of NEPA’s definition of “major federal action,” to exclude specified natural gas and other nationally important energy infrastructure activities and repairs to critical infrastructure that increase capacity by no more than 20%, and project certainty around permitting delays for LNG and pipeline infrastructure projects. For more information on the BAAJA, see Akin’s alert here.

Open Questions and Next Steps

Both the NOPR and Draft Policy Statement are open for public comment. Comments on the NOPR are due 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register, which is likely to fall towards the second half of December. Comments on the Draft Policy Statement must be filed with FERC by November 16, 2026.

In addition to addressing the merits of the underlying proposals, commenters should be prepared to address the statements made in Commissioner Chang’s NOPR concurrence and Draft Policy Statement dissent. This will be particularly important for supporters of the proposals, who will need to be able to blunt these positions in the litigation that is likely to follow should FERC adopt these regulatory and policy changes. Similarly, investors and lenders should weigh the potential schedule benefits set forth in the NOPR, with assistance from the Draft Policy Statement, against the litigation and durability risks that may follow while an automatic authorization program is being implemented. While developers routinely use FERC’s pipeline prior notice program to avoid litigation risk, high-profile projects have still been subject to protests. A new authorization program for LNG facilities may experience growing pains as the market adapts to the new structure.

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