Opinion ID: 797350
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: Preliminarily, I note my assumption that, under § 19 of the Natural Gas Act, 15 U.S.C. § 717r, as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-58, § 313(b), 119 Stat. 594, 689-90 (2005) (EPACT), this Court would have jurisdiction based on Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), to entertain Islander East's petition for review of the CTDEP Decision if we were to grant Islander East's pending motion to add CTDEP's Commissioner Gina McCarthy as a respondent. See, e.g., Verizon Maryland Inc. v. Public Service Commission, 535 U.S. 635, 645, 122 S.Ct. 1753, 152 L.Ed.2d 871 (2002) (a federal court may adjudicate a suit against a state official for prospective relief against an ongoing violation of federal law, even though the state itself, or its agency, would enjoy Eleventh Amendment immunity from the same suit). Islander East asks this Court to instruct CTDEP to promptly issue a WQC to Islander East (Islander East reply brief in support of petition at 23), which would permit Islander East to pursue its plan to construct the proposed pipeline. Plainly, the relief sought by Islander East is prospective. I would grant Islander East's motion to add the Commissioner as a respondent, as I disagree with the majority's view that that motion is moot. I do not endorse the majority's view that, in light of EPACT's conferral of jurisdiction on the federal courts of appeals to review orders such as denials of CWA certificates, Connecticut has waived its sovereign immunity with respect to its denial of Islander East's application for such a certificate. A state may of course waive its sovereign immunity; but for a waiver to be inferred from the state's conduct, that conduct must have been knowing[], cognizant of the [waiver] consequences. Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981). CTDEP denied Islander East's application in February 2004; EPACT was not enacted until August 2005. I cannot view CTDEP's action in denying Islander East's petition as a knowing waiver of sovereign immunity on the basis of a law that did not become effective until 18 months later. The majority finds that Connecticut has waived its sovereign immunity in the present matter by failing to discontinue its participation in Clean Water Act regulation of natural gas pipeline projects after EPACT was enacted. I do not agree. The fact that Connecticut, with awareness of the effect of EPACT since mid-2005, elects to continue to decide applications for CWA certificates may perhaps constitute a waiver with respect to its post-EPACT decisions; but its present actions do not establish knowledge or voluntariness with respect to its past actions. Finally, I disagree with the majority's view that Connecticut lacks sovereign immunity on the theory that EPACT's effect is merely procedural, see Majority Opinion ante at 92-94. Although jurisdictional statutes generally speak to the power of the court rather than to the rights or obligations of the parties, Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 274, 114 S.Ct. 1483 (1994) (internal quotation marks omitted), and although Landgraf does state that [c]hanges in procedural rules may often be applied in suits arising before their enactment without raising concerns about retroactivity, id. at 275, 114 S.Ct. 1483, I cannot regard an enactment that strips a state of immunity from suit as a matter of mere procedure. Sovereign immunity from suit is a privilege, see, e.g., College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board, 527 U.S. 666, 681-82, 119 S.Ct. 2219, 144 L.Ed.2d 605 (1999); the elimination of that privilege is surely a matter of substance. Nonetheless, the fact that CTDEP, a state agency, is immune from suit does not mean that relief under EPACT, if merited, would be unavailable. If Islander East's motion to add the CTDEP Commissioner were granted, as discussed above there would be no sovereign-immunity bar to entertaining its petition, which seeks prospective relief; and [w]hen the intervening statute authorizes or affects the propriety of prospective relief, application of the new provision is not retroactive, Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 273, 114 S.Ct. 1483. Accordingly, I turn to the merits of Islander East's petition and the standard under which the petition is to be reviewed.