Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/berkshire-environmental-action-team-672297685
Timestamp: 2017-07-21 08:36:34
Document Index: 273362935

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 717', '§ 717', '§ 717', '§\n1451', '§\n7401', '§ 1251', '§\n717', '§\n1341', '§ 1341']

Berkshire Environmental Action Team, Inc. v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC, 031517 FED1, 16-2100 - Federal Cases - Case Law - VLEX 672297685
Berkshire Environmental Action Team, Inc. v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC, 031517 FED1, 16-2100
Court:United States Courts of Appeals, Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
Attorney:Richard A. Kanoff, with whom Susan E. Stenger, Saqib Hossain, and Burns & Levinson LLP were on brief, for petitioners. Matthew Ireland, Assistant Attorney General, Environmental Protection Division, with whom Seth Schofield, Assistant Attorney General and Senior Appellate Counsel, Energy and Envi...
Judge Panel:Before Kayatta, Circuit Judge, Souter, Associate Justice, and Selya, Circuit Judge.
Opinion Judge:KAYATTA, Circuit Judge.
Party Name:BERKSHIRE ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION TEAM, INC.; JEAN ATWATER-WILLIAMS; RONALD M. BERNARD; CATHY KRISTOFFERSON; CHERYL D. ROSE; IRVINE SOBELMAN; PAULA L. TERRASI; SUSAN K. THEBERGE; ROSEMARY WESSEL; KATHRYN R. EISEMAN; ARIEL S. ELAN; ELLIOT FRATKIN; MARTHA A. NATHAN; KENNETH HARTLAGE; RONALD R. COLER; JANE WINN; HEATHER MORRICAL, Petitioners, v. TENN...
Case Date:March 15, 2017
Docket Nº:16-2100
FOR REVIEW OF AN ORDER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF
Richard A. Kanoff, with whom Susan E. Stenger, Saqib Hossain,
and Burns & Levinson LLP were on brief, for petitioners.
Matthew Ireland, Assistant Attorney General, Environmental
Protection Division, with whom Seth Schofield, Assistant
Attorney General and Senior Appellate Counsel, Energy and
Environment Bureau, Office of the Attorney General of
Massachusetts, Maura Healey, Attorney General of
Massachusetts, and Turner Smith, Assistant Attorney General,
Environmental Protection Division, were on brief, for
L. Messenger, with whom Brian J. Wall, Gordon Rees Scully
Mansukhani, LLP, J. Curtis Moffatt, and Mosby G. Perrow were
on brief, for Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC.
Kayatta, Circuit Judge, Souter, Associate Justice,
unusual petition for review arising out of a state
administrative proceeding, the petitioners themselves argue
that we lack jurisdiction to hear their complaints about what
has transpired to date before the state agency. Because the
agency itself has not yet finally acted on the matter that is
before it as is required to invoke our jurisdiction under 15
U.S.C. § 717r(d)(1), we agree and dismiss the petition.
Natural Gas Act ("NGA") requires a natural gas
company to obtain from the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission ("FERC") a certificate of public
convenience and necessity before it may construct new natural
gas transportation facilities or expand existing ones. 15
U.S.C. § 717f(c)(1)(A). FERC is responsible for
coordinating all federal authorizations applicable to the
process. Id. § 717n(b)(1). The NGA also
expressly preserves the rights of states under the Coastal
Zone Management Act of 1972, 16 U.S.C. §§
1451-1466; the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. §§
7401-7671q; and the Clean Water Act ("CWA"), 33
U.S.C. §§ 1251- 1388. See 15 U.S.C. §
717b(d). Under the CWA, any applicant for a federal license
to construct or operate facilities that may result in
discharge into navigable waters must "provide the
licensing or permitting agency"--here, FERC--"a
certification from the State in which the discharge
originates or will originate." 33 U.S.C. §
1341(a)(1). The state, in turn, must evaluate the proposed
project's compliance with certain provisions of the CWA
and set forth limitations and monitoring requirements
"necessary to assure that any applicant for a Federal
license or permit will comply" with the CWA "and
with any other appropriate requirement of State law set forth
in such certification." Id. § 1341(d). A
condition imposed under the state's certification
"shall become a condition on any Federal license or
permit subject to the provisions of this section."
31, 2014, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC
("Tennessee Gas") applied to FERC for a certificate
of public convenience and necessity, which FERC eventually
issued in March 2016 subject to, among other things, filing
of proof that Tennessee Gas has received "all applicable
authorizations required under federal law (or evidence of
waiver thereof)." In pursuit of one such authorization
(or waiver thereof), Tennessee Gas submitted an application
to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection
("MassDEP") for water quality certification on June
30, 2015. On June 29, 2016, after almost a full year during
which interested citizens and environmental organizations
(including Petitioners) participated in a nontestimonial
notice-and-comment process, Tennessee Gas received
conditional certification for its proposed project in a
letter from the Western Regional Office of MassDEP signed by
Wetlands Program Chief David Cameron.
letter contained over forty conditions to the project's
approval, including a condition--"Condition
15"--forbidding Tennessee Gas from conducting any
"work subject to this Certification, including the
cutting of trees, " until "the expiration of the
Appeal Period set forth below and any appeal proceedings that
may result from an appeal." The conditional
certification also described the appeal process, explaining
that "[c]ertain persons shall have a right to request an
adjudicatory hearing concerning certifications by the
Department, " including "[a]ny person aggrieved by
this certification who has submitted written comments during
the public comment period." In accordance with
Massachusetts regulations on the subject, the conditional
certification provided that any person who wished to appeal
was required to submit a Notice of Claim for Adjudicatory
Hearing within twenty-one days of the certification's
took advantage of this provision, filing a Notice of Claim
for Adjudicatory Hearing on July 20, 2016. In response,
Tennessee Gas opposed Petitioners' request for a hearing
and sought a stay of further administrative proceedings,
claiming that once the agency had issued a conditional water
quality certification, the state's involvement in the
process was at an end, with any further review to be pursued
through a petition to this court. Petitioners disagreed, as
did MassDEP, which denied Tennessee Gas's request for a