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***********************************************NOT ANOTHER POWER PLANT v . CONNECTICUT SITING COUNCIL—

CONCURRENCE
McDONALD, J., concurring. Although I concur in the result that the majority reaches and join in the court’s judgment, I am not persuaded by the majority’s analysisof the Public Utility Environmental Standards Act, General Statutes § 16-50g et seq., or its conclusion that theact did not preclude the named defendant, the Connecticut Siting Council, ‘‘from considering an interdependent facility that does not yet exist when balancing the public benefit that will be provided by a proposed facility against the harm that it will cause to the environment.’’ (Emphasis added.) Part II B of the majority opinion. In my view, that conclusion is inconsistent with the command of General Statutes § 16-50p (a) (3), which provides in relevant part: ‘‘The council shall file, with its order, an opinion stating in full its reasons for the decision. The council shall not grant a certificate, either as proposed or as modified by the council, unless it
shall find and determine:

* * *

‘‘(B) The nature of the probable environmental impact of the facility alone and cumulatively with other existing facilities . . . .’’ (Emphasis added.)

When the controlling statute explicitly provides that the council can consider only the facility that is thesubject of the application before it alone and cumulatively with ‘‘other existing facilities,’’ it is improper, in my view, to go beyond that language and allow the council to consider nonexistent facilities that may or may not be the subject of future applications that wouldbe submitted, if at all, by completely separate applicants. To do otherwise excises ‘‘existing’’ from the statute. Applications filed with the council are unusually technical and remarkably detailed, and the majority does not explain how the council should evaluate the probable environmental impacts of facilities for which
it does not have that detailed information.

The legislature included the word ‘‘existing’’ in thestatute for a reason, and the majority opinion undermines the legislature’s choice by extending the authority of the council to permit consideration of nonexistent,hypothetical facilities when evaluating a proposed facility. To the extent that the plaintiff, Not Another Power Plant, has expressed concerns with segmentation ofapplications for interrelated facility projects, the resolution of those concerns are policy decisions for the legislature to make, not this court.