FERC must weigh climate and pollution on pipeline approvals
H.R. 6378 — FERC Greenhouse Gas and Environmental Justice Policy Act of 2025 · Filed by Sean Casten (D-IL) · 6 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 3, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill amends the Natural Gas Act to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to evaluate greenhouse gas emissions and environmental justice impacts when deciding whether to approve natural gas pipeline projects. Applicants must submit mitigation plans, and FERC must weigh climate and community health effects against project benefits, with a presumption that projects emitting 100,000+ metric tons of CO2 equivalent annually have significant climate effects. Ordinary citizens—especially those in low-income and communities of color near pipelines—gain stronger protections against disproportionate pollution burdens; the natural gas industry faces higher approval barriers and mandatory mitigation costs.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to embed greenhouse gas quantification, environmental justice evaluation, and mitigation requirements into FERC's pipeline approval process. It is not a deregulation, subsidy, or procedural carve-out—it is a substantive expansion of regulatory scrutiny on climate and equity grounds.
What the text implies
- FERC approval timelines for natural gas projects may lengthen significantly due to mandatory mitigation proposal review and environmental justice community engagement requirements, potentially delaying or blocking projects that cannot meet the 100,000 metric-ton CO2 threshold or demonstrate practicable mitigation.
- The 20-year global warming potential standard (vs. 100-year) for non-CO2 greenhouse gases (methane, nitrous oxide) substantially increases the calculated climate impact of natural gas projects, making more projects subject to the 'significant effect' presumption.
The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
renewable energy developers and operators (potential beneficiaries of mitigation offset requirements; environmental consulting and legal firms (increased demand for environmental impact assessments and; carbon offset and emissions trading platforms