Are the Feds Fairer? The Distributional Equity of Transmission Pipeline Siting

• In Event: Environmental Justice and Distributional Equity

Abstract

As the United States considers expanding federal authority over carbon dioxide pipeline siting, understanding how permitting structures shape environmental justice outcomes is essential to avoid reinforcing existing inequities. Natural gas transmission pipeline siting in the United States is governed at the state level for intrastate pipelines, and at the federal level for interstate pipelines. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) uses a consistent, structured process for permitting interstate pipelines that includes several opportunities for public input. However, state regulations and processes vary extensively, creating a complex patchwork of siting policies across the contiguous U.S. Carbon dioxide pipelines - governed at the state level and new to most parts of the country - have faced siting challenges in the Midwest, prompting proposals for a federal permitting option to aid developers in acquiring rights-of-way and to make the process more similar to that of natural gas pipelines. At the same time, the environmental justice literature documents the inequitable distribution of energy infrastructure; without understanding the impacts of siting practices, new pipeline development risks perpetuating existing injustices. As policymakers consider expanding federal permitting authority for CO₂ pipelines, then, it is critical to understand how permitting structures shape environmental justice outcomes. Currently, the distributional equity of natural gas and carbon dioxide pipelines remains underexplored, and the two existing studies examining national natural gas pipeline distribution - do not consider differences in permitting processes at the state and federal levels. The aim of this study is to provide a nuanced examination of the distributional justice of natural gas pipelines to assess whether federal or state siting processes are associated with more equitable distributional outcomes. Specifically, it asks 1) whether pipelines are inequitably located near low-income and racial/ethnic minority populations, and 2) whether distributive patterns differ between interstate and intrastate natural gas pipelines. For this study, we use a comprehensive publicly available GIS dataset of natural gas transmission lines along with data from the 2020 Decennial Census and the 2021 American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Pipeline polylines are intersected with census tracts, and pipeline density per unit area is regressed against demographic predictors of distributional injustice, including median household income, educational attainment, and the percentage of racial/ethnic minority populations. This is the first study to consider interstate and intrastate pipelines separately at the census tract level while allowing for continuous, nonlinear relationships between demographic characteristics and pipeline presence. Preliminary results indicate statistically significant positive relationships between pipeline density and the share of marginalized populations in tracts containing pipelines, with differences observed between interstate and intrastate systems. Although the models used in this research are descriptive rather than causal, these differences may reflect characteristics of the federal siting process, such as the required incorporation of procedural justice elements like stakeholder consultation and public comment periods. Further analysis of these mechanisms can inform ongoing policy debates over pipeline permitting authority and support the design of siting processes that produce more equitable outcomes as pipeline networks expand.

Author

• Marsha King, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author