Regional, volunteer, climate activists collective Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), Veterans for Peace Spokane Chapter 35, and allied organizations invite the inland Northwest and especially Idaho community to again respond with public, forceful concern to the climate-wrecking, federally enforced, fossil fuel industry threat of the Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) Xpress fracked methane gas pipeline expansion. In Boise, Moscow, and Sandpoint, Idaho, and Kennewick and Spokane, Washington, in mid-May, we propose another week of not only demonstrations, similar to two previous endeavors, but also local presentations offered to describe two-plus years of ongoing, Northwest resistance to GTN Xpress and to consider direct actions against impending construction of compressor stations [1-3].
So many destructive fossil fuels and highway expansion projects have received permits or concluded construction during this last year, such as the Highway 95 reroute on Paradise Ridge near Moscow, the Coastal GasLink pipeline through unceded, Wet’suwet’en, indigenous territory in British Columbia, the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline expansion across western Canada, and now GTN Xpress. Despite the annual, privileged polluter panaceas of Earth Day, this increasingly unbreathable, unlivable planet needs all “hands on deck” and “boots on the ground” to stop the climate hell imposed by our industrialized life ways.
Please join with us and learn about the growing campaign to prevent plans by TC Energy, GTN, Cascade Natural Gas, Intermountain Gas, and other utilities, to push unneeded methane through aging, unsafe, GTN infrastructure and connected pipelines across Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. We gratefully welcome your participation, strategy ideas, and responses in-person and/or via phone, text, or email, as we coordinate these upcoming events and provide a slide show, banner, and T-shirts. Organizers also ask that you print, post, and share this announcement and flyer and bring protest signs, friends, and family to these public gatherings and discussions.
Saturday, May 11, Moscow, Idaho
Protest & Outreach: 10 am to 1 pm Moscow Farmers Market, Friendship Square, 400 S. Main Street
Talk: 6 to 8 pm The Attic, 314 E. Second Street (rear stairs)
Monday, May 13, Boise, Idaho
Protest: 3 to 5 pm Intermountain Gas, 555 S. Cole Road
Talk: 6 to 8 pm Boise Downtown Public Library, William Hayes Memorial Auditorium (first floor), 715 S. Capitol Boulevard
Tuesday, May 14, Kennewick, Washington
Protest: 3 to 5 pm Cascade Natural Gas, 8113 W. Grandridge Boulevard
Talk: 6 to 8 pm Mid-Columbia Library, conference room (first door on right), 1620 S. Union Street
Thursday, May 16, Spokane, Washington
Protest: 3 to 5 pm TC Energy, 201 W. North River Drive, Suite 505
Talk: 6 to 8 pm Liberty Park United Methodist Church, social hall, 1526 E. 11th Avenue
Friday, May 17, Sandpoint, Idaho
Talk: 3 to 5 pm East Bonner County Library, Community Room B, 1407 Cedar Street
Saturday, May 18, Sandpoint, Idaho
Protest & Outreach: 9 am to 1 pm Farmers’ Market at Sandpoint, Farmin Park, 301 Oak Street
Issue Updates
On the morning of April 16, 2024, Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN), a subsidiary of Keystone and Keystone XL tar sands pipelines owner TC Energy (formerly TransCanada), filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), for a prompt decision allowing construction to proceed at three Northwest compressor stations, to increase the gas capacity of the GTN Xpress fracked methane pipeline, FERC docket CP22-2 [4]. Also on April 16, in another probably industry-ghostwritten comment to FERC, Idaho Congressional members urged the commission to approve construction of this Canadian fossil fuels invasion “bringing more supply to the communities that the pipeline safely serves” [5].
That afternoon, FERC issued a 125-page, substantive order addressing arguments raised in three petitions for rehearing filed by GTN, Washington and Oregon attorneys general, and Stop GTN Xpress coalition partners Columbia Riverkeeper and Rogue Climate in late November 2023, within 30 days of FERC’s October 23 certificate of public convenience and necessity granted for GTN Xpress [6-11]. Despite a media conference about these rehearing petitions challenging federal approval of GTN Xpress, held by Washington Governor Jay Inslee and Columbia Riverkeeper, and other Northwest and nationwide coalition protests and efforts to involve the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and White House Council on Environmental Quality in GTN Xpress resistance throughout the winter of 2023-24, FERC ignored these petitions during December 2023 [12-15]. Thus, procedural laws deemed the petitions denied, as proclaimed by FERC staff on December 26 [16, 17].
In its April 16 afternoon, rubberstamp order belatedly addressing rehearing petition arguments, FERC also dismissed a stay requested by the Northwest states and coalition, which could halt GTN Xpress compressor station construction. The lengthy document reasoned that FERC, a purportedly independent agency that approves most oil and gas pipeline infrastructure, could not effectively evaluate both the upstream and downstream, potential, greenhouse gas emissions of GTN Xpress and other proposed projects, which it deems “not reasonably foreseeable.” However, before her looming FERC departure, the commissioner most empathetic to citizen climate concerns, Allison Clements, wrote a strong dissent included in the order but insufficient to halt its legal force [18-20]. Also on April 16, as if signaling a warning about the dangers of increasing gas volumes and pressures in the 60-year-plus, GTN pipeline under the Northwest, the recently expanded, TC Energy, NGTL, methane pipeline system in Alberta, which directly supplies gas to GTN in north Idaho and beyond, ruptured and sparked a massive wildfire northwest of Edmonton [21-23].
Nonetheless, on April 17, FERC issued to GTN Xpress a notice to proceed with expansion construction of three pipeline compressor stations in Athol, Idaho, Starbuck, Washington, and Kent, Oregon, which would increase GTN throughput by 150 million cubic feet of methane gas per day, in accordance with FERC’s flawed, November 18, 2022, final environmental impact statement [24]. Within one week (GTN on April 19, and Washington, Oregon, and coalition partners on April 24), all three litigating parties that petitioned for rehearing in November 2023 filed motions to dismiss FERC’s April 16 arguments against rehearing [25-27]. On April 18, the Northwest states also motioned to dismiss GTN’s petition for judicial review in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, located in the oil industry friendly state of Texas that hosts TC Energy/GTN Houston headquarters. With FERC based in Washington, D.C., where Beyond Extreme Energy and allies protest and rally outside and sometimes inside FERC’s monthly, third Thursday meetings, the three combined, GTN Xpress cases belong, like most FERC challenges, in the more agency-knowledgeable D.C. Court of Appeals, where the Northwest states and environmental groups filed their lawsuits. However, a recent, judicial panel decision favored GTN’s earliest filing of a petition for review, by choosing the Fifth Circuit for all three appeals.
Northwest states and climate and conservation groups have been battling GTN and FERC through U.S. appellant courts since early 2024. GTN filed a petition for review in the Fifth Circuit (Texas) on January 2, stating only that the October 2023, FERC decision is adverse to GTN, and notifying numerous parties, including Tourmaline Oil, but not the other two additional, GTN Xpress methane beneficiaries, Cascade Natural Gas and Intermountain Gas [28]. Columbia Riverkeeper and Rogue Climate filed a petition for judicial review on January 4 in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals [29]. In the same federal court on February 12, Oregon and Washington initiated a significant, precedent-setting challenge, supported by Northwest grassroots groups, refuting the fossil fuels infrastructure approval and rehearing petition denial of corporate interest-captured FERC [30].
In late January, GTN sent to FERC a notification of acceptance of the October 2023 certificate order, even while it contested that order in federal court [31]. On February 20, GTN, via TC Energy, filed with FERC a certificate of compliance report, implementation plan, and request for a notice to proceed with construction of the GTN Xpress project [32]. Although GTN has pressured FERC for GTN Xpress facility construction ever since, it acknowledged that it could not commence without written, federal authorization.
The states of Oregon and Washington sent a letter to FERC on March 18, urging rejection of these requests for GTN Xpress construction permission and asking FERC to decline authorization until the commission completed its decisions on pending rehearing petitions and until judicial review concluded [33]. They also warned that, if FERC or the Court of Appeals reverses or modifies the October 2023 certificate order, harms could later result from project construction and operation that could not be undone, and that not only GTN would bear the entire financial risk of building and dismantling its capacity expansion. Referring to another GTN case currently before FERC, the states asserted, “a substantial portion of GTN’s pending request to raise rates on all existing customers is to pay for the new compressors that form the backbone of this expansion project” [33]. Thus, an order to proceed with construction, as granted by FERC to GTN in mid-April, would cost gas consumers, “undermine federal, state, and local initiatives to reduce emissions and encourage clean energy production,” and degrade the environment, “including by polluting the air, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, harming wildlife, and increasing the risk of wildfire — already a serious threat in the region” [33].
Despite this strong but still nascent, state and allied litigation, TC Energy responded by March 22 with the usual industry insistence on starting gas compressor station construction in April 2024, and continued to file biweekly, GTN Xpress, construction status reports, although no “progress” has ensued [34, 35]. According to GTN’s fourth, biweekly, construction status report, covering April 5 to April 18 and filed with FERC on April 29, the pipeline company has neither commenced construction nor planned any work for the last half of April [36].
Recent Gas Line Incidents & Concerns
Climate and conservation activists throughout the Northwest and beyond are concerned about the health and safety implications of adding explosive, fracked, Canadian gas to the 60-year-plus, GTN pipeline that runs through Sandpoint, Athol, and north Idaho, the populated Spokane, Washington, and Bend, Oregon, areas, and via the connected Williams Northwest pipeline, to the Palouse and Boise metropolitan regions and Snake River plain. Along with relentless, public and political pressure from U.S. Senators Merkley and Wyden of Oregon, other West Coast senators, and Northwest community protests and comments, all urging FERC to deny GTN Xpress before every 2023 monthly meeting, the fiery explosion of TC Energy’s Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline in Strasburg, Virginia, not far from FERC in Washington, D.C. and only days before its July 27, 2023, meeting, successfully delayed for two months a federal decision on this dangerous, Northwest, pipeline expansion [37-44].
But more catastrophic emergencies, inflicted by the unreliable, fossil fuels infrastructure of the interconnected, GTN and Williams Northwest, methane gas pipeline systems, only began to emerge during summer 2023 in the inland Northwest. In early August, while searching for other federal permits to poison Idaho’s largest, deepest lake and downstream river, Pend Oreille, with glyphosate and other herbicides, WIRT found information about TransCanada (now TC Energy) reburying four exposed sections of the two parallel, submerged, 36-inch-wide, GTN gas lines at their crossing under the Pend Oreille River close to Dover, Idaho, during the summer and fall of 2013 [45]. Adding more potentially explosive gas to this subsequently “stabilized,” six-decade-old pipeline, under a river that carries over 40 percent of Columbia Basin water, seems reckless to even casual observers.
Within one week of WIRT’s document discoveries, a west Sandpoint, residential gas supply line ruptured on August 15, only 1.2 miles from the Sandpoint GTN pump station and the main, double, GTN trunk line [46, 47]. Emergency responders advised neighbors to shelter in place and other community members to avoid the area, while crews worked to fix the leak. These public cautions were eventually lifted, although responsible parties provided little information about the incident. On the same day, a 60-acre wildfire of unknown cause blazed within 2,400 feet of the GTN pipeline and within 1.75 miles of its compressor station proposed for GTN Xpress expansion in Athol, Idaho [48-50]. The Sarah Loop Fire, between Silverwood Theme Park and Athol, burned about 1.5 miles west of U.S. Highway 95, damaged two outbuildings, and caused the entire small city of Athol to quickly evacuate. Crews and equipment, temporarily diverted from the nearby, 2,600-acre Ridge Creek Fire in national forest lands, soon dowsed the Athol flames. Vicinity residents returned home by evening, albeit more prepared to leave again, as they closely and perhaps obliviously averted the worst aspects of their volatile, GTN neighbor.
Only a few days later on August 18, an intense wildfire weekend started, with high wind-fanned infernos in Medical Lake and Elk, eastern Washington, together torching hundreds of homes and each swiftly growing from zero to over 10,000 acres within two days [51, 52]. Air quality in the engulfed Spokane area reached hazardous levels, Interstate 90 shut down, and Spokane County and Washington declared states of emergency. Like Union Pacific’s oil train wreck in the Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Oregon, if the 60-acre, Athol fire and (ignited) Sandpoint gas leak had occurred under stronger winds, who knows what would have happened to the nearby, GTN compressor and pump stations? Only 20 miles separated Athol and the Elk wildfire that started and quickly blazed to 3,000 acres within hours.
All these emergencies served as local reminders of the obvious explosion hazards of methane gas increases across the north Idaho and eastern Washington, GTN Xpress pipeline route, photographed and videoed by WIRT during the last few years. But in case communities enslaved by disastrous fossil fuels dependence missed the point of ending reliance on toxic methane during summer 2023, entire gas line systems catastrophically failed across the Northwest during fall and winter 2023. Besides GTN and its proposed, GTN Xpress expansion, these gas delivery disruptions also affected the flow of the Williams Northwest pipeline, which would receive more Canadian gas from GTN Xpress at their juncture in Stanfield, Oregon, near the Columbia River. Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Williams built the first segments of the 3,900-mile, Northwest pipeline 60 years ago, to span Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. Additional methane pumped from over 600 new fracked gas wells in indigenous lands, through GTN and Williams main and lateral lines, would supply Avista, Cascade Natural Gas, Intermountain Gas, and other utility customers across the Northwest. Because TC Energy did not publicly disclose its agreements with utilities and pipeline companies who would distribute GTN Xpress gas, WIRT and an allied coalition are still unsure whether GTN Xpress has secured a contract with Williams to use its Northwest pipeline. Even with this missing information and a deficient environmental impact statement for the project, which fails to address the risks to health, safety, and other public interests that more gas in aging pipelines would impose, FERC approved GTN Xpress at its October 19, 2023, meeting.
One week earlier, on October 12, an excavator digging in a Middleton, Idaho, field about 20 miles northwest of Boise, punctured the main, bi-directional, Williams Northwest methane gas pipeline, causing an un-ignited but forceful explosion [53-56]. The rupture of the 22-inch transmission line, pushing 750 pounds per square inch of pressure through Canyon County, produced a loud bang and substantial gas release, sent dirt plumes into the air, and created intense noise like a jet engine or train derailment, all experienced within one mile of the incident. The gas explosion inflicted minor injuries on the excavator, forced evacuation and shelter-in-place orders on everyone within a four-mile radius, essentially the entire, 10,600-person town and school district of Middleton, and closed Idaho Highway 44 for more than two hours. Later, the local fire district lifted the evacuation notice, but asked nearby residents to shelter in place, while Williams and Intermountain Gas shut off valves on both ends of the affected pipe section. The Middleton explosion provided important insights into the pipe size, line pressure, and large blast and evacuation zones of the Williams pipeline, much smaller than the 36-inch-wide, dual-pipe, GTN line.
On November 8, while WIRT protested GTN Xpress outside Intermountain Gas in Boise, an uninjured landowner struck and damaged the high-pressure, Lewiston Lateral line of the Williams Northwest methane transmission pipeline, while installing a drainage pipe in a farm field near U.S. Highway 195, about five miles northwest of Pullman, Washington [57-60]. The rupture did not burst into flames, but temporarily closed the highway and caused more than 36,750 Avista customers in Lewiston and Moscow, Idaho, Clarkston and Pullman, Washington, and a dozen surrounding communities to lose gas service for two to six days, the largest Avista shutdown in its history. The Palouse area outage caused numerous school districts, universities, government offices, and restaurants to close without heat, hot water, and cooking facilities. As above-freezing but cold weather hovered in the 30 to 50 degree F temperature range, residents wore additional clothes and sought quickly sold-out, electric heaters and blankets, but not public shelters heated with methane. Crews manually turned off lines at individual meters, to purge gas. After workers completed repairs of the broken, lateral, gas line on November 9, the same day that WIRT and allies protested GTN Xpress in Moscow, Avista and multiple assisting utility companies visited and entered tens of thousands of regional homes, businesses, and public buildings, to inspect and relight furnaces and appliances, as Williams re-pressurized and restarted its lateral gas line.
In another instance of the unreliability of “dirty” fossil fuels energy, the same Avista utility based in Spokane, Washington, asked its customers to curtail both methane gas and electricity use during the onset of the coldest depths of inland Northwest winter, on January 13 to 15, 2024 [61-63]. For instance, in Sandpoint, Idaho, on the first frigid night of January 12-13, temperatures plummeted to -17 degrees Fahrenheit (°F), with wind chills of -41°F. This second, widespread, Avista crisis in two months, since the historically large, Palouse gas outage, appears to have arisen from a gas transmission line “mechanical issue with one of our natural gas suppliers’ equipment and extreme weather conditions,” not from private excavators rupturing lines [62]. As covertly as possible, Avista and its methane gas suppliers, TC Energy and GTN, mentioned only that “the pipeline that provides natural gas for about 377,000 customers across four states had lost a compressor station in Canada, just as the region’s temperatures began to plunge” on January 13 [63]. As gas volumes faltered throughout the unnamed, TC Energy, large-pressurized, probably GTN pipeline system, “TC Energy never gave specifics about how the compressor station failed. It took about 12 hours to fix” [63]. Avista not only requested consumer energy conservation, which dropped demand within overloaded conditions, but also discussed with a second major pipeline company interconnected with Avista’s infrastructure, likely Williams, “how quickly they could replace the natural gas supply” [63]. Moreover, neither pipelines nor rails could apparently handle the increasing severity of climate chaos during these winter challenges. Windy, snowy, bitter cold greatly diminished fossil fuels, hazardous materials, and all types of train traffic through the Idaho panhandle and interior Northwest over a week. Across the “Hi Line,” BNSF Railway’s northern route paralleling U.S. Highway 2 through Montana, some locations froze as low as -42°F, with wind chills down to -68°F.
Even while inland Northwest gas infrastructure and supplies rebounded during unusual and severe cold, western Washington and Oregon methane resources plummeted on January 14, “underscoring how the United States’ aging energy distribution networks are heaving under increased demand and extreme weather from climate change” [64]. During the coldest temperatures in Seattle in 14 years, the massive Jackson Prairie Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility, about ten miles south of Chehalis, Washington, suffered a complete outage [64, 65]. An industry worker warned that pipeline volumes and pressures were rapidly dropping, impacting numerous gas-fired power plants and millions of customers along the Williams Northwest pipeline from the Pacific Northwest to New Mexico. The Jackson Prairie reservoir, in sandstone layers more than 1,000 feet underground, holds cheaper gas purchased in summer for Williams Northwest pipeline availability in winter. Its operator, co-owner, and Washington’s largest utility, Puget Sound Energy (PSE), along with other utilities and Williams asked their customers to immediately conserve methane and electricity, due to higher energy use and grid load strain during the extreme cold temperatures, gusty winds, and snow causing scattered power outages. PSE’s 1.1 million electric customers and 900,000 gas customers in Washington rely primarily on methane as their source of heat and on gas-powered plants for most of their electricity, also derived from hydroelectric dams and coal. Within one day, PSE resolved the gas storage facility malfunction and restored full capacity, as 800,000 NW Natural customers and 300,000 Cascade Natural Gas customers learned that the crisis had passed.
When most critically needed during extreme cold and hot weather, methane infrastructure and supplies show vulnerabilities to frozen and volatile oil and gas wells, pipelines, and gas plant equipment. Investments in aging, fossil fuels networks, susceptible to intense temperatures and wildfires, like recently FERC-approved GTN Xpress, could better achieve energy security if spent on geographically distributed, zero-carbon solar panel, wind farm, and battery storage facilities. Instead, fossil fuels peddlers seem intent on sacrificing public interest for private profit, stealthily instigating disaster capitalism to force further customer reliance on outdated energy sources, not community resilience to weather emergencies. TC Energy’s plan to push additional, unnecessary, methane gas through the six-decade-plus GTN and Northwest pipelines with deficient safety records, across the dry, mountainous, inland Northwest, threatens communities concerned about the increasingly hazardous interactions among climate change, sudden, large wildfires, intense, winter storms, and needlessly and selfishly expanded, fossil fuels infrastructure.
Please join growing, worldwide rejection of new or expanded fossil fuels energy!
[1] Stop GTN Xpress Week of Actions, October 24, 2022 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[2] Inland Northwest GTN Xpress Weeks of Actions, October 26, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[3] GTN Xpress Pipeline Expansion, May 2, 2024 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[4] Gas Transmission Northwest LLC Submits Request for Prompt Commission Action on the 02/20/2024 Notice to Proceed with Construction re the GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2, April 16, 2024 Gas Transmission Northwest
[5] Comments of United States Senator James E. Risch et al. in Support of a Notice to Proceed with Construction for the GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2, April 16, 2024 James Risch, Mike Crapo, and Russ Fulcher
[6] Order Addressing Arguments Raised on Rehearing and Dismissing Stay re Gas Transmission Northwest LLC’s GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2…, April 16, 2024 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
[7] Request for Rehearing, November 21, 2023 Columbia Riverkeeper and Rogue Climate
[8] FERC-Approved GTN Xpress Faces Challenges: Resistance Building to FERC Fracked Gas Expansion Decision, November 22, 2023 Columbia Riverkeeper
[9] Governor Inslee, Environmental Groups Push for Rehearing of Northwest Pipeline Expansion, November 22, 2023 Jefferson Public Radio
[10] Thanks to this independent news network for such rare Idaho coverage of the GTN Xpress gas pipeline expansion…, November 24, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[11] West Coast Leaders Urge Feds to Reverse Decision Allowing Natural Gas Pipeline Expansion, November 24, 2023 Idaho Capital Sun
[12] Governor Jay Inslee Media Availability, November 22, 2023 TVW
[13] GTN Xpress Legal Challenges: Important Update on GTN Xpress Legal Challenges, February 19, 2024 Columbia Riverkeeper
[14] Release: Nearly 150 Groups Urge White House to Fully Review FERC’s Disastrous Approval of PNW Pipeline Expansion, January 16, 2024 Revolving Door Project
[15] Biden Urged to Use Obscure Law to Thwart Pacific Northwest Pipeline Expansion, January 17, 2024 Yahoo! News
[16] Notice of Denial of Rehearing by Operation of Law and Providing for Further Consideration re Gas Transmission Northwest LLC under CP22-2, December 26, 2023 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
[17] FERC Ignored (Deemed Denied) Three GTN Xpress Rehearing Petitions, December 26, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[18] FERC Won’t Rethink Pacific Northwest Gas Project Approval, April 17, 2024 Law360
[19] Despite Petitions, Federal Regulators Approve Construction on Expanded Northwest Gas Pipeline, April 22, 2024 Idaho Capital Sun
[20] Departure at Critical Energy Regulator Threatens to Stymie Clean Power, February 11, 2024 Politico
[21] Rupture on TC Energy’s NGTL Gas Pipeline Sparks Wildfire in Alberta, April 16, 2024 Reuters
[22] Fiery Natural Gas Pipeline Rupture West of Edmonton Prompts Alberta Wildfire Response, April 17, 2024 Global News
[23] Wildfire Sparked by Rupture on TC Energy’s NGTL Gas Pipeline under Control; Investigation Continues, April 17, 2024 Globe and Mail
[24] Letter to Gas Transmission Northwest, LLC Granting the 2/20/2024 Request to Commence Construction Activities Associated with the GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2, April 17, 2024 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
[25] Petition for Review Filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit of Gas Transmission Northwest, LLC re April 16, 2024 Order under CP22-2 (Case No. 24-60197), April 19, 2024 Gas Transmission Northwest
[26] States of Washington and Oregon Office of the Attorney General Submit Notice Regarding Further Requests for Rehearing re the 04/16/2024 Order under CP22-2, April 24, 2024 Attorneys General of Washington and Oregon
[27] Petition for Review of Columbia Riverkeeper, et al., Filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit re 04/16/2024 Order under CP22-2 (Case No. 24-1096), April 24, 2024 Columbia Riverkeeper and Rogue Climate
[28] Petition for Review of Gas Transmission Northwest, LLC Filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Regarding FERC’s October 23, 2023 Order under CP22-2 (Case No. 24-60002), January 2, 2024 Gas Transmission Northwest
[29] Petition for Review Filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia of Columbia Riverkeeper and Rogue Climate Regarding FERC’s October 23, 2023 et al. Orders under CP22-2 (Case No. 24-1002), January 4, 2024 Columbia Riverkeeper and Rogue Climate
[30] Petition for Review Filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit of the State of Washington and the State of Oregon, re the October 23, 2023 and December 26, 2023 Orders under CP22-2 (No Case No.), February 12, 2024 Washington and Oregon Attorneys General
[31] Gas Transmission Northwest LLC Submits Notification of Acceptance of Certificate Order for the GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2, January 30, 2024 TC Energy
[32] Gas Transmission Northwest LLC Submits Implementation Plan and Request for Notice to Proceed with Construction for the GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2, February 20, 2024 Gas Transmission Northwest
[33] Answer of the States of Washington and Oregon re Gas Transmission Northwest LLC’s February 20, 2024, Request to Proceed with Construction at the GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2, March 18, 2024 Washington and Oregon Attorneys General
[34] Gas Transmission Northwest LLC Submits Response to the March 18, 2024, Letter from the States of Washington and Oregon Opposing the February 20, 2024, Request for Notice to Proceed with Construction at the GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2, March 22, 2024 Gas Transmission Northwest
[35] Gas Transmission Northwest LLC Submits Biweekly Construction Status Report No. 2 for the Period of March 6, 2024, to March 20, 2024, re the GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2, March 26, 2024 Gas Transmission Northwest
[36] Gas Transmission Northwest LLC Submits Biweekly Construction Status Report No. 4 for the Period of 04/05/2024 to 04/18/2024 for the GTN Xpress Project under CP22-2, April 29, 2024 Gas Transmission Northwest
[37] TC Energy’s Columbia Gas Transmission Pipeline Explodes in Virginia, July 25, 2023 Pipeline Safety Trust
[38] Fire Erupts after Explosion at TC Energy Pipeline in Virginia, July 25, 2023 Defence News
[39] Merkley, Wyden Urge FERC to Reject Fossil Gas Pipeline Expansion, July 26, 2023 Ron Wyden, U.S. Senator for Oregon
[40] Critics: East Coast Explosion Reason to Deny NW Pipeline Expansion, July 26, 2023 Public News Service
[41] Urgent July 26 and 27 GTN Xpress Pipeline Actions, July 26, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[42] July 27, 2023 Open Meeting: FERC Press Conference, July 27, 2023 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
[43] FERC Pulls GTN Xpress from the July Meeting Agenda, July 27, 2023 Columbia Riverkeeper
[44] Key Vote on Expanding Gas Pipeline in Oregon, N. Idaho Delayed after Public, Political Pressure, July 28, 2023 Idaho Capital Sun
[45] GTN Gas Pipeline Exposed, Reburied Under Pend Oreille River!, August 8, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[46] Shelter-In-Place Order Lifted Following Gas Line Rupture in Sandpoint, August 15, 2023 KXLY
[47] Sandpoint Gas Line Rupture!, August 15, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[48] Sarah Loop Fire Evacuations Downgraded, August 15, 2023 Coeur d’Alene Press
[49] Athol Fire Mostly Contained, Evacuations Downgraded to ‘Get Ready’, August 15, 2023 Spokesman-Review
[50] Evacuated Athol Fire 1.75 Miles from GTN Compressor, August 16, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[51] Washington Wildfires Prompt Evacuations, August 19, 2023 Bonner County Daily Bee
[52] Spokane County Declares Emergency as Gray and Elk Fires Continue to Burn, August 19, 2023 Spokane Public Radio
[53] Gas Line Explosion in Middleton Prompts Evacuations, Injures One, October 12, 2023 KTVB
[54] Excavator Punctured Gas Line Causing Late Morning Explosion in Middleton, October 12, 2023 KIVI
[55] Massive Gas Line Explosion Prompts Evacuation in Middleton, Idaho, October 12, 2023 Reply Alerts
[56] Idaho Gas Pipeline Explosion, October 13, 2023 Wild Idaho Rising Tide
[57] Largest Natural Gas Outage in Avista’s History Cuts Off Heat to Much of the Palouse; Some Customers Could Be without Power 3-5 Days, November 9, 2023 Spokesman-Review
[58] Pipeline Rupture near Pullman Leaves 36,000 without Natural Gas, November 9, 2023 Crosscut
[59] Evening Report, Friday, November 10, 2023: Avista Relighting, Perils of Methane, November 10, 2023 KRFP
[60] Palouse Outage: Avista on Track to Restore Gas to All Customers by Tuesday Night, November 13, 2023 Spokesman-Review
[61] With Temperatures Well Below Zero, Avista Asks Both Electric and Natural Gas Customers to Conserve Power, January 13, 2024 Spokesman-Review
[62] Avista Announces Resumption of Normal Energy Use, January 14, 2024 Avista
[63] Customers Help Avista Avert Natural Gas Crisis over Weekend Cold Snap: ‘We Know It was a Hardship’, January 17, 2024 Spokesman-Review
[64] Massive Gas Outage Threatens Millions of Americans’ Energy Supplies amid Arctic Storm, January 13, 2024 Huffington Post
[65] Why PSE Urged Western Washington to Conserve Energy amid Severe Cold, January 14, 2024 KUOW
