State Regulators Pump Breaks On SoCalGas’s Ventura Expansion Plan
The California Public Utilities Commission reversed course on Monday, and will now force SoCalGas to formally apply for permission to expand a notorious gas compressor site that sits directly next to a heavily-Latinx elementary school in the City of Ventura. The move comes after an outpouring of frustration and concern from city and county officials, businesses, parents and teachers.
What’s Going On In Ventura:
Gas compression stations—giant industrial facilities that keep gas flowing through hundreds of miles of pipelines—are critical pieces of infrastructure for delivering natural gas across the state. SoCalGas’s compressor station in Ventura is aging; and, in order to keep up with current capacity requirements, it must either be modernized and expanded or retired and relocated.
SoCalGas wants to keep it right where it is, expanding and “modernizing” the compressor station—even though the company itself has acknowledged that other potential locations for the compressor station “scored slightly higher in environmental considerations”. SoCalGas believes that the Ventura station provides “greater reliability … in consideration of project timeline” and “reduces the project cost burden to our customers”.
City leaders want the site relocated. The mayor, the city council, the county board of supervisors, the Ventura board of education—as well as scores of parents, teachers, business leaders, and neighborhood residents—have urged the state to relocate the facility away from the elementary school. The community opposes the expansion because SoGalGas’s site in Ventura has been plagued by leaks, suffering at least a dozen “unplanned” methane leaks in recent years. Moreover, these stations are often located in more remote regions, because, as experts warn, gas compressor stations pose numerous health and safety threats, including fires, gas leaks, and explosions.
Who decides?
Rubber stamp? The California Public Utility Commission—a state agency that regulates private public utility companies—ultimately will decide the outcome. Until very recently, it appeared that CPUC would rubber stamp SoCalGas’s plans as the entire issue of the Ventura Compressor Station was shoehorned into the gas company’s overall application to raise rates for its gas customers, a proceeding which does not lend itself to in-depth scrutiny of citing decisions.
Pumping the brakes: Earlier this week, the utility commissioners issued a “scoping memo” which instructed SoCalGas “to address issues concerning [its] proposal for the Ventura Compressor Modernization Project, [in] a separate application …. [which should] include information on SoCalGas’ detailed feasibility analysis of alternative sites and equipment configurations, including emissions profiles of the alternatives studied, if applicable, supporting documents on its preferred project alternative, and the facility’s revenue requirement, rate treatment, and regulatory accounting.”
How rigorous a review will SoCalGas’s plans get? We still don’t know. There are two possible paths and the scoping memo did not make clear which one CPUC will take. Option one is to require a rigorous environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Option two is the commission will hold hearings on SoCalGas’s plans that are separate from the hearings that it would hold around the gas company’s request to increase rates, but the decision will be made outside of the confines of a formal CEQA review which translates into less process and rigor for the gas company’s plans.
What they want. SoCalGas prefers avoiding CEQA review. They want to expand the Ventura station, as soon as possible, and with the least expense and scrutiny as possible. The city and its supporters prefer the CEQA review. As the city’s filings before CPUC states— “The record in this proceeding would benefit from some straight talk. The city and the community are opposed to SoCalGas’ proposed Ventura Compressor Station project.” Forcing SoCalGas to undergo CEQA review markedly increases the odds that the Ventura station is retired and relocated.
The Newsom Wild Card:
It’s the CPUC that decides whether to allow SoCalGas to expand the Ventura Compressor Station. But Governor Newsom’s opinion matters. He appointed four out of its five commissioners. And the president of the commission, Alice Busching Reynolds, worked inside the governor’s mansion as Newsom’s senior advisor on energy policy until December of last year. And, as one former CPUC executive director put it: “We do whatever the governor tells us to do, period.”
So far, the Governor has not weighed-in on the fight in Ventura. But the ambiguity in the CPUC’s scoping memo this week provides a critical opening for him to do so. The timing of these hearings could work to the advantage of the city and its backers. The arms-length relationship between Newsom and the state’s oil and gas giants is widening. At the governor’s behest, the legislature passed a “setback” law that bars oil companies from drilling new wells near schools, hospitals, or residential neighborhoods. Also important: The governor’s not-so-secret Presidential ambitions likely are not well-served by the optics of standing by silently while his administration pushes through a leak-prone gas compressor station next to a heavily Latinx elementary school that the parents, teachers, and the city itself all vehemently oppose.
ICYMI: This Compressor Station Leaks Methane Gas Next To An Elementary School.