On Tuesday, North Dakota regulators granted a request by Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE:$ETP) to postpone a public hearing on whether the company went against state rules. For those who don’t know, Energy Transfer is the sole developer of the Dakota Access pipeline.
After the news was released to the public, Julie Fedorchak, public service commissioner, expressed her frustration with the continued delays, saying she was “concerned that we keep pushing things back and just aren’t making forward progress.”
Essentially, the commission will be looking to see whether ETP removed too many trees and improperly handled some soil during the building of the $3.8 billion pipeline that started moving North Dakota oil to Illinois back in June. The hearing was supposed to take place on Thursday, and it was to provide information for the commission to decide whether or not to pursue the case.
Energy Transfer Partners requested a delay on Monday in order to give attorneys on both sides more time to discuss a resolution. And today, the commission voted 2-1 to grant a delay, with the expectation that the hearing will be scheduled for next month.
Not surprisingly, Fedorchak voted against the move. “We can’t determine with the facts that we have on the table right now whether to proceed with a complaint or not, so this investigation was supposed to be a process to get to the bottom of those issues,” she said. “So that [was] set for Thursday, and now that’s slipping another month.”
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