Federal Red Tape -or- My Version of How We Got Here

Professionally, I am a project manager for a large natural gas interstate transportation company. I am managing two projects: Colorado Hub Connection and Sundance Trail Expansion.

Colorado Hub is a new 27.5-mile 24-inch diameter pipeline bringing gas supplies out of the Piceance Basin in Colorado to my company's existing mainline in Colorado, so that the gas can flow to various markets. Sundance Trail is an expansion of my company's existing pipeline system - it entails adding 16 miles of new 30-inch pipeline parallel to our existing pipeline south of Opal, Wyoming, and adding new compression to our compressor station at Vernal, Utah. Colorado Hub is scheduled to be built in 2009, and Sundance Trail is scheduled to be built in 2010.

My company is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and larger projects like these require a certificate from FERC. The process for receiving a certificate is long and tedious, because it basically requires coordination with lots of government agencies as well as private landowners and the public in general. In theory, the efforts of all parties involved are coordinated and the project proceeds forward smoothly. In practice, it rarely works that way.

For example, during an important stage of the process recently in Colorado, the BLM came in at the eleventh hour and shifted 180 degrees from their support of our project, at least in one section of the proposed route. Now I have team members jumping through all kinds of hoops to design a new alternative. We are spending literally millions of dollars to satisfy the whims of a regulator, and in the end, I don't believe the public is any better served than had we been able to stick with our original route.

This is one shining example of how we got where we are today. Our lives are overly regulated. Too much power is given to government agencies. And the end result is that end consumers and taxpayers pay way too much for the end product that they receive.

Let me make one thing clear - I am a conservationist. When we were routing this pipeline and designing it, we took careful consideration of plant and animal species, habitat protection, and general resource protection. In fact, as I look at other projects built in the same area in recent years, I know that our project will be more environmentally friendly than any of them. In spite of that, however, we are forced to jump through unnecessary hoops. I see this system as fundamentally flawed - it contributes to greater inefficiency and hurts everyone.