Petition, BIE requested that the Commission issue an emergency order immediately suspending transportation services on the ME 1 natural gas liquids pipeline owned and operated by the public utility Sunoco Pipeline L.P. a/k/a/ Energy Transfer Partners (SPLP) owing to these discrete issues on the segment of ME 1 in the vicinity of Lisa Drive. Subsequently, on March 7, 2018, Commission Chairman Gladys M. Brown granted the March Petition, and issued an Ex Parte Emergency Order (Emergency Order), containing specific terms and conditions discussed below. The Commission ratified the Emergency Order without modification at the Public Meeting of March 15, 2018. Sunoco has neither filed an Answer to the March Petition nor requested a hearing on the emergency order as permitted by the Emergency Order and Commission regulations. See 52 Pa. Code § 3.4. This proceeding is directed at this specific safety concern on a specific portion of the ME 1 pipeline. The March Petition, and the Emergency Order issued from it, focused on the Lisa Drive concerns and did not initiate a public docket on pipeline utility safety in general, nor open a public inquiry regarding the safety and operations of SPLP as a public utility. The Emergency Order was the Commission’s direct and immediate response to a specific pipeline safety issue brought to it by the Commission’s pipeline safety staff in BIE. Under the terms of the Emergency Order, SPLP had two options under which it could seek relief from the suspension of transportation service directed in the Emergency Order. One option was to take the steps necessary to satisfy BIE that SPLP had addressed all safety issues raised in the March Petition and Emergency Order. The other was for SPLP to file an answer and conduct hearings to show why SPLP should no longer be subject to the restrictions of the Emergency Order. SPLP proceeded under the former option by taking those steps necessary to satisfy BIE, then in filing its SPLP Petition.
Petition at ⁋⁋ 17-25. While the Commission appreciates that SPLP has taken these extra steps to validate the safety of ME 1, the Commission will not rely upon these assertions to the extent that they are not similarly discussed in the BIE Concurrence. That said, the Commission is cognizant of the economic effect of ordering the suspension of ME 1 service. Natural gas liquid pipelines play a vital role in many industries given that these petroleum products serve as industrial feedstocks as well as additives to gasoline. The Commission understands that shippers that utilize ME 1 as customers, and users of products transported by ME 1 either have had to suspend operations or look elsewhere for supplies due to the ME 1 closure occasioned by the safety threat imposed by the Lisa Drive subsidence. Petitions For Intervention As is discussed the Emergency Order provides specific procedural requirements on this docket. Specifically, OP 1.c.i., as noted above, establishes that BIE, as the petitioning party, may advise the Commission that it is satisfied that SPLP has addressed the safety issues BIE raised in the March Petition. In the BIE Concurrence, BIE has stated that this is the case. BIE has stated its satisfaction with the safety result of the analyses mandated in the Emergency Order. By express terms, the Emergency Order provides that SPLP may resume service on ME 1 following the Commission’s approval after the condition that BIE affirmatively express to the Commission that it is satisfied with the integrity of ME 1 in the study area of Lisa Drive in West Whiteland Township. With the filing of the BIE Concurrence, and Commission review of that filing, the above-referenced docket is complete. We will not consider or rule upon the requests for intervention in this matter at this time, as they are mooted by this Order. An intervenor’s role in proceedings before this Commission is on a non-party basis, meaning that the initiating and responding parties