Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-19-01009/USCOURTS-caDC-19-01009-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Respondent
Narragansett Indian Tribal Historic Preservation Office
Petitioner
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC
Intervenor for Respondent

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Submitted November 8, 2019 Decided February 7, 2020 

No. 19-1009 

NARRAGANSETT INDIAN TRIBAL HISTORIC PRESERVATION 

OFFICE, 

PETITIONER

v. 

FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, 

RESPONDENT

TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE COMPANY, LLC, 

INTERVENOR

On Petition for Review of Orders of the 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 

Anne Marie Garti was on the briefs for petitioner. 

James P. Danly, General Counsel, Federal Energy 

Regulatory Commission, Robert H. Solomon, Solicitor, and

Jared B. Fish, Attorney, were on the brief for respondent. 

Brian D. O’Neill, Michael R. Pincus, and Michael 

Diamond were on the brief for respondent-intervenor 

Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC. 

USCA Case #19-1009 Document #1827558 Filed: 02/07/2020 Page 1 of 10
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Before: SRINIVASAN, MILLETT, and PILLARD, Circuit 

Judges.

1

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge MILLETT. 

MILLETT, Circuit Judge: The Narragansett Indian Tribal 

Historic Preservation Office (“Narragansett Tribe”) petitions 

for review of an order of the Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission denying its motion to intervene in a natural gas 

pipeline certificate proceeding after the certificate to build a 

pipeline had issued. The Narragansett Tribe argues that, in 

authorizing Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC 

(“Tennessee Gas”) to build a pipeline across landscapes that 

hold sacred significance to the Tribe, the Commission denied 

it the procedural protections of the National Historic 

Preservation Act (“Preservation Act”), 54 U.S.C. §§ 300101 et 

seq.

While the Narragansett Tribe awaited the Commission’s 

action on its pending motion to intervene and its separate 

motion for reconsideration of an order allowing construction to 

commence, Tennessee Gas completed its pipeline. In the 

process, Tennessee Gas irreparably destroyed more than 

twenty ceremonial stone features. With its effort to save those 

ceremonial landscapes lost, the Narragansett Tribe petitioned 

this court for review, seeking only an order compelling the 

Commission to amend its regulations so that it cannot repeat 

the alleged violations of the Preservation Act in the future. 

The problem for the Narragansett Tribe is that it lacks 

standing to seek such relief. By the time the Narragansett Tribe 

filed its petition for review, the ceremonial landscapes had been 

1

 This petition for review was considered on the record from the 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and on the briefs of the 

parties. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2); D.C. CIR. R. 34(j). 

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irremediably destroyed. And the Narragansett Tribe has not 

shown a substantial risk that a similar disagreement between it 

and the Commission will recur. We therefore must dismiss the 

petition for lack of jurisdiction. 

I 

Section 106 of the Preservation Act, 54 U.S.C. § 306108, 

“requires federal agencies to consider the effect of their actions 

on certain historic or culturally significant sites and properties 

(expressly including those of Indian tribes) and to seek ways to 

mitigate those effects.” City of Tacoma v. FERC, 460 F.3d 53, 

69 (D.C. Cir. 2006). In carrying out those responsibilities, 

federal agencies must “consult with any Indian tribe * * * that 

attaches religious and cultural significance to” potentially 

affected properties. 54 U.S.C. § 302706(b). Agencies “must 

complete the [S]ection 106 process ‘prior to the approval of the 

expenditure of any Federal funds on [a project] or prior to the 

issuance of any license.’” 36 C.F.R. § 800.1(c) (quoting 54 

U.S.C. § 306108). 

In March 2016, the Commission issued a certificate under 

Section 7 of the Natural Gas Act, 15 U.S.C. § 717f, authorizing 

Tennessee Gas to build and operate its Connecticut Expansion 

Project. The Project comprises approximately 13 miles of 

pipeline loops—that is, pipeline segments built alongside 

existing pipelines to increase their capacity. At issue here is a 

3.81-mile-long pipeline segment near Sandisfield, 

Massachusetts. 

This case arises from the Narragansett Tribe’s attempt to 

save from destruction 73 ceremonial stone landscapes of 

cultural and religious importance that were in the pipeline’s 

approved path. Tennessee Gas proposed to mitigate the harm 

by removing the features during construction and replacing 

them later. But the Narragansett Tribe explained why, as a 

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religious matter, that approach was equivalent to destroying the 

features outright: 

In our ancestral tradition, these ceremonial stone 

groupings are “prayers” to our Creator and Earth 

Mother calling for balance and harmony and should 

be left to their spiritual work. If they are moved, their 

ceremonial/spirit work is then broken[;] it cannot 

likely be re-connected as we are not privy to the 

original trauma that called forth these specific ancient 

ceremonial responses. If dismantled and rebuilt (as 

[Tennessee Gas] has offered), what then would be 

created is an artistic replica of an active ceremonial 

stone grouping that was put in place by long ago 

ancestors for a purpose that we, today, may be 

incapable of identifying or re-connecting with its 

original (and still active) specific spiritual task. 

J.A. 339. 

On April 6, 2017, Tennessee Gas filed with the 

Commission a request to proceed with construction. Four days 

later, the Narragansett Tribe moved to intervene. The 

Narragansett Tribe argued that the Commission had failed to 

satisfy its consultation responsibilities under the Preservation 

Act and that authorizing construction in the Sandisfield portion 

would irreparably harm the Narragansett Tribe. 

The Commission granted Tennessee Gas’s request and 

authorized construction to start on April 12, 2017, including in 

the area containing the sacred landscapes. On April 24, 2017, 

the Massachusetts PipeLine Awareness Network (“Mass 

PLAN”), an existing party to the proceedings, requested 

rehearing of that order and moved for a stay of construction, 

raising many of the same objections to the pipeline project as 

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the Narragansett Tribe. The Narragansett Tribe filed its own 

request for rehearing of the construction order two weeks later.

While the Narragansett Tribe and Mass PLAN awaited 

Commission action on their still-pending motions, including 

Mass PLAN’s request for a stay of construction, Tennessee Gas 

completed construction of the entire pipeline, destroying more 

than twenty ceremonial stone landscapes in the process. 

Construction was completed no later than October 31, 2017, 

when the Commission authorized Tennessee Gas to begin 

service on the pipeline. Not until two and a half months later 

did the Commission deny the Narragansett Tribe’s motion to 

intervene, reject its rehearing request, and deny Mass PLAN’s 

rehearing request. The Commission then dismissed the motion 

to stay construction as moot. 

On February 2, 2018, the Narragansett Tribe timely 

requested rehearing of the denial of its motion to intervene. 

Almost ten months after that, the Commission denied 

rehearing. On January 15, 2019, the Narragansett Tribe timely 

filed a petition for review of the Commission’s April 2017, 

January 2018, and November 2018 orders. 

II 

To establish Article III standing, a petitioner “must have 

(1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to the 

challenged conduct of the defendant, and (3) that is likely to be 

redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Spokeo, Inc. v. 

Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1547 (2016). The Narragansett Tribe 

cannot satisfy those requirements because the relief it seeks 

cannot redress the injury it suffered. 

Although the destruction of the ceremonial landscapes 

certainly qualifies as an injury in fact, it is no longer 

redressable. Because the Commission allowed Tennessee Gas 

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to complete construction of the pipeline while motions for 

relief remained pending, the damage to the ceremonial 

landscapes has been done.2

That problem “may sound like one of mootness—a 

justiciable controversy existed but no longer remains—but the 

timing makes [it] one of standing.” Advanced Mgmt. Tech., 

Inc. v. Federal Aviation Admin., 211 F.3d 633, 636 (D.C. Cir. 

2000). “Standing is assessed ‘at the time the action 

commences,’” which in the case of a petition for review is “the 

time [the petitioner] sought relief from an Article III court[.]” 

Id. (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. 

(TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 191 (2000)). By the time the 

Narragansett Tribe first filed its petition in this court, the 

construction was complete and the damage done. 

So the Tribe’s claim became moot while the matter was 

still pending before the Commission and, as a result, the 

Narragansett Tribe lost standing to seek review in this court, 

unless it could identify an ongoing or future injury. See City of 

Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 107–110 (1983); Morgan 

Drexen, Inc. v. CFPB, 785 F.3d 684, 689 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (To 

establish a future injury, “a plaintiff must show that there is a 

‘substantial risk’ that the harm will occur.”); see also Utility 

Workers Union of America Local 464 v. FERC, 896 F.3d 573, 

577 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (“[A petitioner] must support each 

2

 The Narragansett Tribe does not challenge the timing of the 

Commission’s decision. See generally Allegheny Defense Project v. 

FERC, 943 F.3d 496, 497 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (per curiam) (ordering 

rehearing en banc on the question whether “the Natural Gas Act, and 

specifically 15 U.S.C. § 717r(a), authorizes [the Commission] to 

issue tolling orders that extend the statutory 30-day period for 

Commission action on an application for rehearing”). 

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element of its claim to standing by affidavit or other 

evidence[.]”) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

The Narragansett Tribe has not done so. It does not assert 

a continuing or future injury from the pipeline’s operation itself 

and, in fact, it specifically eschews asking this court to “vacate 

the order for a pipeline that is in operation[.]” Narragansett 

Tribe’s Br. 57. Instead, the Narragansett Tribe requests “that 

the remedy focus on the Commission’s systemic violations[,]” 

seeking only an order from this court requiring the Commission 

to amend its regulations governing consultations with federally 

recognized Indian tribes. Narragansett Tribe’s Br. 57–58. But 

revised regulations do nothing to repair the already completed 

harm to the Narragansett Tribe’s cultural and religious 

interests. And the Narragansett Tribe has no standing to seek 

purely prospective relief in the form of amended regulations. 

Standing to seek such forward-looking injunctive relief 

requires the Narragansett Tribe to “show [that it] is suffering 

an ongoing injury or faces an immediate threat of injury.” 

Morgan Drexen, 785 F.3d at 689 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). For a future injury, that means submitting evidence 

“show[ing] that there is a ‘substantial risk’ that the harm will” 

recur. Id. (quoting Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 

398, 414 n.5 (2013)). The Tribe, though, has not shown any 

prospect of the conflict between it and the Commission arising 

again, much less a “real and immediate threat of again being” 

subject to the same conduct, Lyons, 461 U.S. at 110; see also 

id. at 107–110. 

Trying a different tack, the Tribe argues that procedural 

rights claims are subject to a less demanding redressability 

requirement. That is true. But a wholly speculative prospect 

of redress still does not pass muster. 

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What the cases recognizing a more relaxed redressability 

requirement for procedural rights claims mean is that, instead 

of needing to establish that compelling the agency to follow the 

correct procedure would lead to a substantive result that favors 

the petitioner’s concrete interests, the petitioner need only 

show that its concrete interests could be better protected. 

The person who has been accorded a procedural right 

to protect his concrete interests can assert that right 

without meeting all the normal standards for 

redressability and immediacy. Thus, under our case 

law, one living adjacent to the site for proposed 

construction of a federally licensed dam has standing 

to challenge the licensing agency’s failure to prepare 

an environmental impact statement, even though he 

cannot establish with any certainty that the statement 

will cause the license to be withheld or altered, and 

even though the dam will not be completed for many 

years. 

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 572 n.7 (1992) 

(emphasis added); see also Mendoza v. Perez, 754 F.3d 1002, 

1010 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (The relaxed redressability requirement 

means that the petitioner need not show that “correcting the 

procedural violation would necessarily alter the final effect of 

the agency’s action on the [petitioner’s] interest[.]”). 

In other words, the relaxed redressability requirement is 

met when correcting the alleged procedural violation could still 

change the substantive outcome in the petitioner’s favor; the 

petitioner need not go further and show that it would effect such 

a change. See, e.g., American Rivers v. FERC, 895 F.3d 32, 

41–42 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (holding that petitioners satisfied the 

relaxed redressability requirement because vacating the 

challenged licensing order and requiring the Commission to 

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follow the correct procedure “could [lead it to] change its 

mind”) (internal quotation marks omitted); Center for 

Biological Diversity v. EPA, 861 F.3d 174, 185 (D.C. Cir. 

2017) (holding that the relaxed redressability requirement was 

satisfied because the agency “could reach a different 

conclusion” if the court vacated its order); Sierra Club v. 

FERC, 827 F.3d 36, 44 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (same). 

The problem here is that, unlike in those cases, fixing the 

alleged defect in the Commission’s regulatory procedures 

could not possibly prevent or mitigate the harm to the 

Narragansett Tribe’s cultural and religious interests. See 

Humane Soc’y of the United States v. Babbitt, 46 F.3d 93, 100–

101 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (holding that a procedural injury was not 

redressable because there was “no possibility” that the already 

completed action could be undone). Nor has the Narragansett 

Tribe identified a substantial risk of injury to be redressed. 

The Narragansett Tribe’s three remaining arguments fare 

no better. First, it argues that its injury is redressable because 

“remand may be required for some of the procedural errors in 

this case[.]” Narragansett Tribe’s Reply Br. 8 (formatting 

modified). But aside from its request that the Commission 

revise its regulations, the Narragansett Tribe does not explain 

how any correction of procedural course would help it or what 

it could obtain out of a remand. 

Second, the Tribe contends that we could “alleviate the 

cause of [its] harms by granting party status.” Narragansett 

Tribe’s Reply Br. 8. It wants that status “so its Petition can be 

reviewed on the merits.” Narragansett Tribe’s Br. 57. 

Although a successful challenge to the Commission’s denial of 

intervention could lead to party status, there is no case on the 

merits left in which the Narragansett Tribe could intervene. Its 

merits challenges revolved around preserving the ceremonial 

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landscapes—claims that are now moot. Given that, granting 

party status would not offer any redress for the Narragansett 

Tribe’s identified injury. 

Third, the Narragansett Tribe requests attorneys’ fees and 

costs. See 54 U.S.C. § 307105 (authorizing an award of fees 

and costs to a party that “substantially prevails” in an action 

brought in any federal district court to enforce the Preservation 

Act). That changes nothing because the prospect of recovering 

fees or costs does not “create an Article III case or controversy 

where none exists on the merits of the underlying claim[.]” 

Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 480 (1990); 

see also District of Columbia v. Jeppsen ex rel. Jeppsen, 514 

F.3d 1287, 1289 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (“Article III requires that the 

requested remedy redress the injury in fact of which a plaintiff 

complains; when intervening events have mooted the 

plaintiff’s underlying claim, the plaintiff’s continuing interest 

in attorneys’ fees does not support her continued standing to 

pursue the underlying claim.”) (formatting modified). 

III 

In sum, the Narragansett Tribe lacks standing because the 

cultural and religious injury it suffered can no longer be 

redressed by any of the relief it seeks from this court. Changing 

the Commission’s Section 106 consultation process going 

forward would do nothing to redress the already-completed 

loss of the ceremonial stone landscapes. And the Narragansett 

Tribe has demonstrated no other basis for its standing to obtain 

prospective injunctive relief. For those reasons, the petition for 

review must be dismissed. 

So ordered. 

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