On Monday, August 3, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) issued two orders for Enbridge’s Sandpiper pipeline application – granting the Certificate of Need, which conveys to Enbridge the powers of eminent domain, and commencing the routing permit review process. However, there were conditions. First, the PUC order requires a thorough Comparative Environmental Analysis (CEA), which “shall also include a qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of the environmental impacts of the various route alternatives; and consider the environmental impact of the Sandpiper facility alone and the cumulative impact of both the Sandpiper facility in the Line 3 replacement project.” This is an important shift in regulatory process, as the PUC previously denied the motion by Honor the Earth to combine environmental analysis for Line 3 and Sandpiper (Map).