Re: Constitution Pipeline Rejection
You are trying to handicap a political process. NY is a hostile political environment for pipelines. Obama appointees in the courts add more obstacles. Obviously, WMB believes they can overcome them. They are going to need to stick with every detail of the law and hope eventually regulatory/appeals agencies run out of legally plausible arguments to deny approval. At best, this means very long delays and repeated court appeals. The opposition has deep state resources. Costs will be high. On the flip side, anybody building a competing project will face comparable regulatory costs. This means that higher costs can be passed on to Northeast customers as higher rates as long as rates still leave costs below LNG delivery costs.
In short, it probably will go through but will take a very long time and costs will escalate.