Opinion ID: 1810507
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Inventory Requirement.

Text: 1. & 2. At the time MPL applied to EQC for a certificate of site compatibility to build a large electric power generating plant at Brookston in 1975, the PPSA required the EQC to designate sites from a pre-selected inventory of potential sites. Minn.Stat. § 116C.55 (1976), as then drafted, provided as follows: Subdivision 1. Policy. The legislature hereby declares it to be the policy of the state to site large electric power facilities in an orderly manner compatible with environmental preservation and the efficient use of resources. In accordance with this policy, the environmental quality board shall choose sites that minimize adverse human and environmental impact while insuring continuing electric power system reliability and integrity and insuring that electric energy needs are met and fulfilled in an orderly and timely fashion. Subd. 2. Inventory criteria; public hearings. The board shall promptly initiate a public planning process where all interested persons can participate in developing the criteria and standards to be used by the board in preparing an inventory of potential large electric power generating plant sites and high voltage transmission line corridors and to guide the site suitability evaluation and selection process. The participatory process shall include, but should not be limited to public hearings. Before substantial modifications of the initial criteria and standards are adopted, additional public hearings shall be held. Such criteria and standards shall be promulgated on or before July 1, 1974. Subd. 3. Inventory of potential large electric power generating plant sites and high voltage transmission line corridors. On or before July 1, 1975, the board shall assemble and publish an inventory of potential large electric power generating plant sites and high voltage transmission line corridors. The inventory report of potential large electric power generating plant sites and high voltage transmission line corridors shall set forth the criteria and standards used in developing the potential site and corridor inventory. After completion of its initial inventory of potential sites and corridors, the board shall have a continuing responsibility to evaluate, update and publish its inventory and if, due to changed circumstances or information, a site or corridor is inconsistent with prescribed criteria or does not meet prescribed standards, such site or corridor shall be removed from the inventory of potential sites and corridors. Numerous references were made to the requirement of an inventory throughout the act including Minn.Stat. §§ 116C.56, .57. However, this procedure proved to be impractical, unworkable, and improvidently prescribed. It meant that within one year the EQC was obliged to study in depth numerous areas in the state suitable for the construction of power plants which would never be built, thereby needlessly dissipating the resources of the EQC. The net effect would be to alarm unnecessarily the residents in areas which would have been included in the inventory but not subsequently utilized. Although the public utilities that applied for specific certificates of site compatibility were obliged to pay the state fees commensurate with the cost of conducting the site selection proceedings, no such funding was available to the EQC for completing the equally onerous undertaking of preparing an inventory of numerous sites. In recognition of the awkward and unnecessary processes set forth in Minn.Stat. § 116C.55, subds. 2, 3 (1976), those sections of the statute were amended by Chapter 439 of Laws of 1977. Now, instead of requiring an inventory of potential large electric power generating plant sites, the statute calls for an inventory of study areas. Those sections of the statute presently provide as follows, Minn.Stat. § 116C.55 (1978): Subd. 2. Inventory criteria; public hearings. The board shall promptly initiate a public planning process where all interested persons can participate in developing the criteria and standards to be used by the board in preparing an inventory of large electric power generating plant study areas and to guide the site and route suitability evaluation and selection process. The participatory process shall include, but should not be limited to public hearings. Before substantial modifications of the initial criteria and standards are adopted, additional public hearings shall be held. All hearings conducted under this subdivision shall be conducted pursuant to the rulemaking provisions of chapter 15. Subd. 3. Inventory of large electric power generating plant study areas. On or before January 1, 1979, the board shall adopt an inventory of large electric power generating plant study areas and publish an inventory report. The inventory report shall specify the planning policies, criteria and standards used in developing the inventory. After completion of its initial inventory the board shall have a continuing responsibility to evaluate, update and publish its inventory. We find merit in the contention of EQC that the Power Plant Siting Act must be construed to harmonize with Chapter 116B, the Environmental Rights Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 116C.01-.34 (1978) governing the Environmental Quality Board, and Chapter 116D, the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act. In PEER v. MEQC, 266 N.W.2d 858, 865 (Minn.1978), we stated: Although the focus of each of these statutes is slightly different, together they are part of a coherent legislative policy, one of whose aims is to harmonize the need for electric power with the equally important goal of environmental protection. Recognizing that the MEQC constituted the best pool of environmentally skilled personnel, the legislature chose it to administer the PPSA. To ensure that the MEQC would not sacrifice environmental protection in its attempt to site power plants and HVTLs as efficiently as possible, it required that to the fullest extent practicable the policies, regulations and public laws of the state shall be interpreted and administered in accordance with the policies set forth in [MEPA]. Section 116D.03. And, if the MEQC failed to comply with the mandates of MEPA and the PPSA, MERA existed to permit private citizens to bring a civil action to compel the agency to consider environmental factors. Each of the acts referred to prohibits any activity which significantly affects the quality of the environment if there is a feasible and prudent alternative consistent with the state's paramount concern for the protection of its air, water, land, and other natural resources from pollution, impairment or destruction. Economics alone shall not justify such conduct. Minn.Stat. § 116B.09, subd. 2 (1978). The same concerns are expressed in Minn. Stat. § 116D.03, subd. 2(d) (1978). The EQC is specifically authorized to examine sites other than those proposed by the utilities. Minn.Stat. § 116C.57, subds. 1, 4(7) (1978). Minn.Stat. § 116C.01 (1978) underscores the policy of seeking alternative solutions. The effect of the PPSA was to transfer from the utilities the exclusive prerogative of selecting plant sites by conferring on the EQC the ultimate responsibility for designating sites which will minimize adverse human and environmental impact while insuring continuing electric power system reliability and integrity and insuring that electric energy needs are met and fulfilled in an orderly and timely fashion. Minn. Stat. § 116C.53, subd. 1 (1978). It can hardly be denied that as originally drafted the act made it the duty of the EQC to prepare an inventory of potential power plant sites, and required utilities to limit their applications to areas contained in the inventory. However, for us to hold that the preparation of such an inventory was a jurisdictional prerequisite would totally frustrate present legislative policy. In the light of the intervening amendments, which repealed the necessity for selecting a site from the inventory, a procedure now rejected by the legislature will not be invoked to render this litigation futile and invalid. The amended statute adopted on June 2, 1977, reads in part as follows: Pursuant to sections 116C.57 to 116C.60, the board shall study and evaluate any site proposed by a utility and any other site the board deems necessary which was proposed in a manner consistent with rules adopted by the board concerning the form, content, and timeliness of proposals for alternate sites. Minn.Stat. § 116C.57, subd. 1 (1978). We regard the inventory requirement as a procedural rather than a substantive provision of the law to the extent that if the selection of Fine Lakes meets all of the other requirements of the environmental statutes, and would have been included in an inventory had one been prepared, the parties and the public should not now be subjected to the inevitable expense, delay, and inconvenience of requiring EQC to go through the now obsolete motions of preparing an inventory. [4] Accordingly, we hold that the designation of EQC of the Fine Lakes site is not null and void because of its failure to select the site from an inventory specified in Minn.Stat. § 116C.55 (1976) prior to its amendment.