BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (Legal Newsline) – A Houston company is seeking relief from a regulation in Connecticut regarding subsurface tap on a gas pipeline.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC filed a complaint on June 8 in the U.S. District Court District of Connecticut against Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Robert Klee, et al. seeking declaratory relief from the Tape Regulation.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff is seeking declaratory relief from "defendants’ threatened enforcement of a regulation of the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority requiring the installation of subsurface tape ... above the facility and with a minimum separation of 12 inches between the facility and the tape, along an approximately 8-mile length of plaintiff’s interstate gas pipeline located in Connecticut."
The plaintiff alleges this threatened enforcement is unlawful and preempted by the Pipeline Safety Act.
The plaintiff seeks a declaration that the Tape Regulation is not a one-call notification program requirement, that the PSA, 49 U.S.C. § 60104(c), expressly prohibits and preempts the application of the Tape Regulation to any interstate pipeline; and that the PSA, 49 U.S.C. § 60104(c), expressly prohibits and preempts the application of the Tape Regulation to the Connecticut Loop. Additionally, plaintiff seeks other further relief the court deems just and proper.
It is represented by Elizabeth C. Barton, Erick M. Sandler, Christopher A. Klimmek and Michael L. Miller of Day Pitney LLP in Hartford, Connecticut.
U.S. District Court District of Connecticut case number 3:18-cv-00966-WWE