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Legislation and Regulations.
The Maritime Security Act of 2002 Amendments to
the Deepwater Port Act
The Maritime Security Act of 2002, signed into law
in November 2002, amended the Deepwater Port Act of 1974 to include
offshore natural gas facilities. The legislation transferred jurisdiction
for offshore natural gas facilities from the FERC to the Maritime
Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, both of which were at that
time under the U.S. Department of Transportation. (The Coast Guard
has since been moved to the Department of Homeland Security.)
The amendments in the Maritime Security Act of 2002
lowered the regulatory hurdles faced by potential developers of
offshore LNG receiving terminals. Placing them under Coast Guard
jurisdiction both streamlined the permitting process and relaxed
regulatory requirements. Owners of offshore LNG terminals are allowed
proprietary access to their own terminal capacity, removing what
had once been a major stumbling block for potential developers of
new LNG facilities. The Hackberry Decision, discussed below, has
the same impact on onshore LNG facilities under FERC jurisdiction.
The streamlined application process under the new
amendments promises a decision within 365 days of receipt of an
application for construction of an offshore LNG terminal. Once the
final public hearing on an application has been held, it must be
either approved or denied within 90 days. The Maritime Administration
will be responsible for reviewing the commercial aspects of the
proposal, and the Coast Guard will consider safety, security, and
environmental aspects.
Shortly after these changes went into effect, ChevronTexaco
filed a preliminary application with the Coast Guard for its Port
Pelican project, which was later approved. Plans for the project
call for an LNG facility in 90 feet of water, with a baseload capacity
of 800 million cubic feet per day. Subsequently, El Paso Natural
Gas Company filed an application for its Energy Bridge project,
which would use specialized tankers with on-board regasification
equipment to offload regasified LNG through a submerged docking
buoy into a pipeline to the mainland. AEO2004 incorporates the Deepwater
Port Act amendments through reduced permitting costs and associated
delays in such projects.
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Notes and Sources
Released: January 2004
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