Opinion ID: 201450
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Reliance on Cape Wind's affirmation

Text: 25 Finally, appellants argue that Cape Wind's affirmation that it possessed the requisite property interests was obviously false, as there exists no mechanism by which private entities can obtain a license to construct a data tower on the federally controlled OCS. The Corps's grant of a Section 10 permit on the basis of this false affirmation was therefore arbitrary and capricious, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). Again, this line of attack is not deflected by reference to Corps regulations. Appellants note that agency decisions based on false factual information run afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act. See, e.g., Missouri Serv. Comm'n v. FERC, 337 F.3d 1066, 1075 (D.C.Cir.2003) (Reliance on facts that an agency knows are false at the time it relies on them is the essence of arbitrary and capricious decisionmaking.). 6 Appellants' argument hinges on the veracity of Cape Wind's affirmation, which in turn depends, appellants argue, on whether authorization in addition to a Section 10 permit is necessary for construction of the data tower. 7 The first part of our opinion holds that a Section 10 permit is necessary for all structures on the OCS unless otherwise indicated by law, but does not determine whether such a permit is sufficient to authorize building on the federally controlled OCS. 26 Whether, and under what circumstances, additional authorization is necessary before a developer infringes on the federal government's rights in the OCS is a thorny issue, one that is unnecessary to delve into in the instant case. The data tower at issue here involves no real infringement on federal interests in the OCS lands. To start, the structure is temporary, of five years' duration, more than two of which have now passed. The tower is also not exclusive — it must accept data collection devices form the government and others, and it must give the data to the government. The tower is a single structure, and it provides valuable information that the Corps requires in order to evaluate the larger wind energy plant proposal. The Corps's public interest evaluation of the data tower resulted in a finding of negligible impact on property ownership and stated that collection of the data is in the public interest. Environmental Assessment at 4-5. It is inconceivable to us that permission to erect a single, temporary scientific device, like this, which gives the federal government information it requires, could be an infringement on any federal property ownership interest in the OCS. 27 Thus, the question of infringement of federal property interests is entirely hypothetical in this case. As a result, appellants' arguments based both on the arbitrary and capricious provision in the APA and the public interest standards discussed in Alaska are misplaced. We do not here evaluate whether congressional authorization is necessary for construction of Cape Wind's proposed wind energy plant, a structure vastly larger in scale, complexity, and duration, which is not at issue in the present action. Our analysis is limited to whether additional Congressional authorization is necessary for the data tower, which does not infringe on any federal property interest, and we conclude that it is not.