A federal agency that receives all of its funding from the energy industry it regulates has never rejected a pipeline plan, demonstrating clear bias and corruption, according to a new lawsuit.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, designed to be self-funded, independent and non-partisan, receives its money from fees paid by the companies it oversees.

One of those fees is based on the volume of gas moving through a pipeline. The more gas that flows through a pipeline, the more money the commission receives.

Some Pennsylvania residents say they believe that's why the agency has approved dozens of pipeline projects stretching through the state -- and in fact has approved every pipeline application it received during the past 30 years.

Those decisions have angered several landowners in Pennsylvania who are fighting plans that allow pipelines to tunnel through their backyards.

About 20 percent of the commission's budget comes from pipelines and the natural gas industry. The rest comes from electricity, hydropower and oil companies.

Each time the federal agency approves a pipeline, the pipeline project is automatically granted eminent domain status.

The commission itself does not have authority to grant eminent domain status. That power comes from the Natural Gas Act. The act says if an easement can't be negotiated for a project the agency has authorized, the pipeline builder has the right of eminent domain.

In the last five years, the commission approved 104 pipelines across the country, including 34 in Pennsylvania, according to a PennLive analysis.

Before the Marcellus Shale boom, the agency approved two to four a year in the state. Once drillers unlocked a stockpile of natural resources, that number climbed to five to 10 a year, as numerous pipelines were planned to move oil and gas to market.

With each new pipeline, company negotiators show up at the doors of many Pennsylvania homes, asking landowners to accept an easement, which is a one-time payment for the pipeline crawling through their properties.

Landowners can negotiate the price, but they can't challenge eminent domain.

Commission decisions aren't reviewed by Congress or the president, according to the agency's budget language. The decisions can only be challenged in federal court, which take a lot of money many Pennsylvania residents say they don't have.

The lawsuit

Finding little help, residents and environmentalists are focusing their ire on the commission, accusing it of being a rubber stamp for industry.

A lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., challenges the commission's relationship with industry.

The suit accuses the commission of regulatory capture, a situation in which corporations control regulators. Some define it as an injustice that occurs when an agency tasked with protecting the public interest actually protects industry.

"Pipelines have a 100 percent approval rate with FERC. There's bias and corruption," said Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper and leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network.

She and the network filed the lawsuit against the commission, calling it a "corrupt, rogue agency" and specifically took issue with the PennEast Pipeline, a 114-mile pipeline planned for Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

A commission spokeswoman said the agency would not comment on the lawsuit or any claims made in association with the lawsuit.

The claims include:

The commission has never issued a civil penalty to a pipeline company for an environmental violation.

The commission has never granted a rehearing request to a non-industry party, such as landowners, local governments or nonprofits.

The commission has never funded an office approved by Congress to assist non-industry parties involved or affected by the commission's decisions.

"The commission's structural bias in favor of private companies, combined with its unique power to literally reach into the backyards of everyday people, flagrantly violates Due Process," according to the lawsuit.

'We have a situation here'

Former agency chairwoman and current Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur talked about pipelines and oil and gas development during a National Press Club luncheon last year.

"Pipelines are facing unprecedented opposition from local and national groups, including environmental activists," she said. "We have a situation here."

The groups go through every commission docket, email her daily, contact her on Twitter and demand to be heard during the agency's open meetings. And they were "literally at our door closing down First Street so FERC (wouldn't) be able to work," LaFleur said of a two-week protest last year in front of the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters.

The commission has to make "difficult policy choices that won't please everyone all of the time. Sometimes I'd be happy to please anyone any of the time," she said.

"I think that our nation is going to have to grapple with our acceptance of gas generation and gas pipelines if we expect to achieve our climate and environmental goals," LaFleur said.

The agency evaluates the need for a project based on market demand and then looks at environmental and safety aspects, she said.

Commission spokeswoman Mary Driscoll on Friday said she couldn't provide an answer that day about inspections in Pennsylvania. She was asked how the agency conducts environmental inspections while considering pipeline projects, and whether the agency follows the pipeline's entire path or only checks certain areas.

Tony Baroni, a Susquehanna County resident, said there were no commission representatives on his property during planning for the Constitution Pipeline.

FERC and the president

The agency is designed to be nonpartisan and independent, but it rarely seems to work that way in practice, almost always following the president's agenda.

No more than three of the five commissioners, who are nominated by the president and approved by the Senate, can be from the same political party. But much like the Supreme Court, their decisions can appear in line with political ideology.

For example, President Barack Obama made natural gas development a part of his Clean Power Plan to fight climate change and reduce carbon emissions.

Similarly, in 1983, former President Ronald Reagan wanted to deregulate the natural gas industry, saying American consumers were being hurt by government regulations that created higher gas bills.

Then commission Chairman C.M. Butler III told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee there would be "a disaster in the gas market" if the rules weren't changed, according to a March 1983 Associated Press report.

With prices fixed by law instead of the free market, producers would lose customers and possibly go bankrupt, he said.

At the time, there were artificially high prices during the 1980s gas glut, while the simultaneous oil glut offered low prices. Butler told the Senate that consumers would switch to the cheaper energy "and the result will be a disaster in the gas market."

The commission largely supported Reagan's proposal, saying it would reduce prices because "the price of gas follows the price of oil."

We're seeing that truth today. The country is in the throws of another oil and gas glut, and the prices are low for both.

'Essential' permits

Pipelines are one of the solutions to help industry dig out of difficult market conditions. The more oil and gas they can move, the lower the supply. Once supply decreases and demand picks up, prices will increase.

And approving these pipelines will again help industry, according to the commission's critics.

LaFleur, who was nominated by Obama in 2010 and confirmed by the Senate in 2014 for a second term, said, "We're very fortunate to have abundant and relatively affordable, domestic natural gas."

The country's climate goals would be much more difficult to achieve without it, she said.

And while she agrees with her late friend and former House Speaker Tip O'Neill that "all politics is local," the agency is tasked with overseeing energy industry operations throughout the entire country.

That doesn't mean a family losing its maple trees in northeast Pennsylvania isn't important, but it does mean a federal agency is tasked with seeing the big picture.

The commission's permitting of pipelines is "essential" to implementing the Clean Power Plan, LaFleur said.

"The worst place we want to be is closing down the old stuff and not being able to build the new stuff because we're not willing to do the work to get it there," she said of coal-fired power plants and pipelines, respectively.

Bigger budgets

The federal agency's budget grows every year and is largely spent on staff salaries and benefits, including annual raises, and other overhead costs.

While the money is technically allocated by Congress, the commission funds itself and gives the same amount back in a deposit to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

The $347 million FERC asked Congress for in the fiscal year 2017 budget is a $27 million, or 8 percent, increase from its $320 million budget in fiscal year 2016.

During the last 10 years, the agency's budget has increased about 50 percent from $231 million.

By comparison, the Department of Energy budget increased about 38 percent in the same time period, from $24 billion in fiscal year 2007 to $33 billion in fiscal year 2017.

Most of the commission's budget is spent on salaries and benefits for its nearly 1,500 employees. The salaries increased $10 million in the last three years.

The agency employs a mix of analysts, attorneys, economists and engineers, with some of them earning six-figure salaries. Attorneys earn $76,000 to $140,000, according to FERC's website.

Meanwhile, many Pennsylvania landowners say they don't have the resources to fight pipelines and commission decisions.

Without environmental groups filing lawsuits, most landowners would have no voice, said Meg Holleran, who tried to save her family's maple trees from the path of development.

"If you can't afford an attorney, you just have to hope the pipeline builder doesn't want your property, because FERC always takes their side," she said.