Opinion ID: 184033
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The NIETCs raise significant environmental impacts

Text: 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.