Washington Watch

FERC officials say they aren’t pressuring the competing Denali and TransCanada Alaskan pipeline projects to merge. But the two projects – one already in the pre filing process – are heading toward submitting construction applications to FERC at roughly the same time in 2011 or 2012, depending on who one talks to, in what would be a regulatory clash and crash that the agency hopes to avoid. Congress is also pressuring the two Alaskan gas transportation contestants, though very subtly.

With Congress almost certain to pass a bill revising or eliminating its longstanding ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, interstate natural gas pipelines are trying to insure that any bill does not include an amendment setting up a national commission which would examine the adequacy of current federal policies governing the siting of natural gas infrastructure.

Pushed by a decision by a federal appeals court, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) wants to make changes in its respirator and training standards which will allow it to assess a penalty on a company on a per employee violation basis. A decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 2005 said OSHA went beyond the language of those two standards in fining a Houston construction company for 11 violations of the asbestos standard, based on the fact that the company did not provide 11 employees with respirators or training for removing asbestos.