Opinion ID: 184033
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The NIETCs are major federal actions

Text: DOE asserts that the NIETCs are not major federal actions because it would be pure speculation to predict their environmental impacts. Citing Northcoast Environmental Center v. Glickman, 136 F.3d 660 (9th Cir.1998), DOE asserts that an agency action that has only speculative environmental impacts is not a major federal action. Our holding in Northcoast is more nuanced than suggested by DOE. At issue in that case was a proposal by the Forest Service (FS) to establish guidelines for research, management strategies, and information sharing concerning a root rot fungus on federal land in Oregon. Id. at 670. The district court found that the programs did not constitute final agency action subject to judicial review and that even if they did, they were not major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. Id. at 668. On appeal, we first noted that where review is sought under the general review provision of the APA, the agency's decision must be a final agency action and the plaintiffs must establish they have suffered a legal wrong, or will be adversely affected or aggrieved within the meaning of the relevant statute. Id. We proceeded to comment that the agency action must (1) be federal, (2) `major', and (3) have a significant environmental impact. [28] Id. The opinion focused on the third requirement. We concluded that the district court properly recognized that none of the activities had an actual or immediately threatened effect on the environment and correctly decided that the FS reasonably found that its actions did not significantly affect the quality of human environment. [29] Id. at 669-70. Although sympathetic to plaintiffs' concern that agencies should conduct a full NEPA analysis when management plans are implemented or proposed, we concluded that the current forest management programs did not call for specific enough action to trigger NEPA's procedural requirements, and noted that plaintiffs could challenge the sufficiency of an agency EIS when discrete agency action is called for. Id. at 670. Northcoast offers several points of guidance. First, in determining whether the program had a significant environmental impact, we implicitly held that the program was a final agency action subject to review under the APA, even though we recognized that plaintiffs could challenge the sufficiency of an agency EIS when discrete agency action is called for. [30] Id. Second, we determined that the program was, at least potentially, a major Federal action. It is not clear whether the requirement that agency action be major was considered separately from the requirement that the action have significant environmental impact, or whether the latter was treated as an element of the former. In any event, the opinion certainly implies that if the program did have a significant environmental impact, it would have been a major federal action. Third, although Northcoast states that an agency need not prepare an environmental study when its action does not have a significant environmental impact, it also holds that the record must be sufficient to allow the court to determine that the agency's conclusion was reasonable. See 136 F.3d at 670. Here, the NIETCs are undoubtedly final agency actions. The NIETCs conclude DOE's responsibilities under § 216. They establish the boundaries for two national electric transmission corridors. Once the NIETCs become final, any question as to the actual siting of a facility within the corridors will be addressed to FERC. See 73 Fed.Reg. at 12,969 (DOE agrees that the effect of a National Corridor is to delineate geographic areas within which, under certain circumstances, FERC may ultimately authorize the construction or modification of electric transmission facilities.). Both the intent and impact of the NIETCs support the conclusion that they constitute major Federal action. They create National Interest corridors to address national concerns. The NIETCs cover over a 100 million acres in ten States. Moreover, they create new federal rights, including the power of eminent domain, that are intended to, and do, curtail rights traditionally held by the states and local governments. See 16 U.S.C. § 824p(b), (e). In sum, we hold that the NIETCs are final agency actions that constitute major Federal actions.
The remaining question is whether the NIETCs could have significant environmental impacts or, more accurately, whether DOE has created a record sufficient to allow us to evaluate whether its no effects determination is reasonable. DOE proffers four arguments against being required to undertake an environmental study. First, DOE contends that no potential project-specific impacts are reasonably foreseeable or caused by the NIETCs. DOE contends that the NIETCs are not decisions to add transmission capacity to solve the problems of congestion or to site transmission facilities along preselected routes. DOE claims that these decisions remain to be made by multiple independent actors, and given the vast range of options available ... it would be pure speculation to predict environmental impacts or assign them (as a matter of causation) to the Designation Order. DOE further asserts that under § 216 its limited task was to determine the conditional availability of a federal forum for siting transmission projects, and it would have been premature for DOE to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of new transmission facilities when deciding merely whether a federal forum should be made available. DOE also contends that even if the NIETCs were certain to result in specific projects being submitted to FERC, DOE was not required to prejudge the potential impacts of those projects because a project-specific NEPA review is required before a permit issues. Second, DOE claims that the NIETCs have no foreseeable programmatic effects. DOE admits that in some instances NEPA may require review of programmatic decisions that prescribe future actions, even though project-specific NEPA review will occur before a particular project is undertaken. [31] Nonetheless, DOE maintains that the NIETCs are not programmatic decisions with reasonably-foreseeable future effects because each NIETC is not a plan to guide land management or energy policy decisions, but merely makes available a federal procedural remedy ( i.e., a forum for the consideration of interstate transmission lines), in the event that FERC finds relevant State forums to be inadequate per the standards set by Congress. DOE maintains that the addition of a backstop federal forum does not mean that States and FERC will approve a greater number of projects and it does not favor transmission solutions over non-transmission alternatives ... nor particular generation sources over others. DOE recognizes that it is tasked with choosing the geographic boundaries of the National-Interest Corridors, but asserts that petitioners have failed to show that these boundaries circumscribe relevant alternatives as they place no limits on State siting authorities. Third, DOE denies that the NIETCs could have any impacts on sensitive areas such as critical habitat for endangered species, scenic rivers, wilderness areas, and historic sites. DOE points out that an EIS must be prepared whenever substantial questions are raised about whether a specific project may have a significant effect. DOE further asserts that petitioners have the burden of showing that the potential impacts to sensitive resources are a reasonably foreseeable result of the designations. DOE maintains that [t]he very breadth of these designations belies any suggestion that impacts can be meaningfully evaluated at the designation stage, even if it is assumed that the designation will prompt additional transmission projects. DOE disagrees with petitioners' claim that the inclusion of land within a corridor will discourage conservation, opining that a NIETC might as readily spur the expansion of parks and conservation easements within the Corridors, as interested parties seek to protect sensitive resources. [32] DOE further argues that claims of potential habitat fragmentation within a corridor cannot be meaningfully reviewed because of the many variables and wide range of alternatives. DOE claims that any suggestion that environmentally sensitive areas might be excluded from the corridors confuses DOE's threshold task (designating areas with congestion problems) with the States' and FERC's subsequent task (evaluating proposed solutions). Fourth, DOE argues that the NIETCs do not diminish any legal protections because Congress provided that nothing in § 216 alters federal environmental laws, including laws requiring special authorization for use of federal lands or federal permits for impacting air and water resources. The NIETCs do not allow power companies to run away from state and federal environmental and land use laws because they, in themselves, have no preemptive effect, and FERC's authority to preempt State law under § 216(b) is project-specific and limited to circumstances enumerated by Congress. According to DOE, there are no foreseeable adverse effects from the mere threat of federal intervention because potential acceleration of State proceedings does not dictate the outcome of those proceedings and because DOE does not have any discretion to alter the statutory time frames, which might preclude meaningful review of their potential effects. There may be merit to some of DOE's arguments in terms of limiting the scope of an EIS or in explaining why an EA and not an EIS should be prepared, but they fail both as a matter of law and fact to justify DOE's failure to undertake any study of the potential environmental impacts. DOE's primary argument appears to be that because the NIETCs do not approve any specific sites, they have no meaningful environmental impact. This perspective fails to appreciate that a decision to encourage, through a number of incentives, the siting of transmission facilities in one municipality rather than another has effects in both municipalities in terms of the values of land and proposed and potential uses of land. The effects may be difficult to measure and may be determined ultimately to be too imprecise to influence the Designation, but this is precisely the type of determination that only can be intelligently made after the preparation of at least an EA. Recognition of these consequences flowing from the NIETCs defeats most of DOE's reasons for not preparing an EA or EIS. Without such a study, it is impossible to fairly determine whether project-specific impacts are reasonably foreseeable, whether there are programmatic effects, [33] and whether the Designation has any impact on sensitive areas. Furthermore, the NIETCs do diminish legal protections at least as to whether any particular geographic area should be included in a corridor. The particular siting of a transmission facility may be challenged before a State or FERC, but a challenge to a specific site cannot challenge the inclusion of the area involved in the NIETCs by DOE. Thus, the alleged impact of the NIETCs' inclusion of particular areas as within the corridors, and the exclusion of other areas, are subject to review for environmental impacts at this time or not at all.
Any remaining doubt as to whether it is possible to consider the environmental impacts of the NIETCs dissipates in light of DOE's preparation of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for its designation of the West-wide Corridors for federal lands in eleven western states. See U.S. Department of Energy et al., Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, Designation of Energy Corridors on Federal Land in the 11 Western States (DOE/EIS-0386), 2007 (hereinafter PEIS). A separate and distinct provision in the EPAct, § 368 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub.L. No. 109-58, § 368, 119 Stat. 727, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 15926), directs federal land-management agencies to identify rights-of-way across lands they administer to serve as energy corridors. DOE points out that the statute provides that any corridor designated under this section shall, at a minimum, specify the centerline, width, and compatible uses of the corridor. 42 U.S.C. § 15926(e). Together with the Department of Interior, DOE prepared the required PEIS. See 42 U.S.C. § 15926(a)(2) (providing for the preparation of any environmental reviews that may be required to complete the designation of such corridors). The federal agencies issued the PEIS in October 2007. Two aspects of the PEIS are of particular relevance to this case. First, in response to the question why conduct an environmental review under NEPA and prepare a programmatic analysis, the PEIS's executive summary states: Section 368 requires the Agencies to conduct any environmental reviews necessary to complete the designation of Section 368 energy corridors. The proposed designation of Section 368 energy corridors would not result in any direct impacts on the ground that may significantly affect the quality of the human environment. Nevertheless, the Agencies have decided to prepare a PEIS to conduct a detailed environmental analysis at the programmatic level and to integrate NEPA at the earliest possible time. [34] PEIS, supra, Executive Summary, at ES.8 (footnote omitted). Second, after identifying an `unrestricted' conceptual West-wide network of energy transport paths, the executive summary explained: Next, the locations of individual segments of the conceptual network defined in Step 1 were examined and revised to avoid major known environmental, land use, and regulatory constraints (such as topography, wilderness areas, cultural resources, military test and training areas, and Tribal and state natural and cultural resource areas, etc.).... The revision resulted in a preliminary West-wide energy corridor network that avoided private, state and Tribal lands, many important known natural and cultural resources, and many areas incompatible with energy transport corridors because of regulatory or land use constraints while meeting the requirements and objectives of Section 368. PEIS, supra, at ES.12.2.1. We recognize that the PEIS and the West-wide Designation were undertaken pursuant to a separate and distinct provision of the EPAct. Nonetheless, the creation of the PEIS and its impact on the resulting corridor designation is strong evidence both that it is possible to determine the environmental impacts of a proposed energy corridor and that the study of such environmental impacts may result in modifications of a corridor's boundaries. The West-wide Corridors Designation, like the NIETC Designation, did not approve any specific sites, but designated specific areas for sites. Nonetheless, the lead agencies, including DOE, reshaped the corridors in response to the PEIS to exclude certain sensitive lands. Certainly § 15926 contains a more specific requirement for a study of environmental impacts than § 216, but DOE's ability to undertake a PEIS for West-wide Corridors, and to modify the boundaries based on the PEIS, undermines its assertion that it is not possible to evaluate the environmental impacts of a NIETC.