Opinion ID: 388147
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: PERMITS System

Text: 25 NEPA contains the basic requirement that all federal agencies shall 26 identify and develop methods and procedures ... which will insure that presently unquantified environmental amenities and values may be given appropriate consideration in decisionmaking along with economic and technical considerations. 27 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(B)(1976). This language has been interpreted to mandate a rather finely tuned and 'systematic' balancing analysis in each instance. Calvert Cliffs' Coordinating Committee, Inc. v. United States Atomic Energy Commission, 449 F.2d 1109, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 1971). 28 The law in this Circuit is clear that a formal and mathematically expressed cost-benefit analysis is not always a required part of an EIS. Trout Unlimited, 509 F.2d at 1286; Matsumoto, 568 F.2d at 1290-91. This is not to say that a mathematical cost-benefit analysis is never required. If an alternative mode of EIS evaluation is insufficiently detailed to aid the decision-makers in deciding whether to proceed, or to provide the information the public needs to evaluate the project effectively, then the absence of a numerically expressed cost-benefit analysis may be fatal. See Trout Unlimited, 509 F.2d at 1286. This, however, was not the case. 29 Landowners claim that the BPA possessed the technology to do a sophisticated cost-benefit analysis through a methodology known as PERMITS (Process of Energy Routing Minimizing Impact from Transmission System). The BPA, while acknowledging the existence of PERMITS, argued at the hearing on the preliminary injunction, that it is still in a prototype stage, and that the BPA had not yet accepted it as a preferred methodology. In light of these uncertainties as to the developmental stage and value of PERMITS, we cannot say that the BPA, as a matter of law, should have utilized this system. The district court concluded that NEPA does not require an EIS to contain an intricate, computerized system of analysis. We agree. An EIS is adequate if it aids the decision-makers in deciding whether to proceed and provides the information the public needs to enable both those who would challenge, and those who would support the project to respond effectively. Trout Unlimited, 509 F.2d at 1286. There may well be circumstances in which these goals cannot be achieved unless a sophisticated, numerically-based cost-benefit analysis is provided. This case does not provide such circumstances, however. First, it is not clear from the record that PERMITS was available to the BPA, and, second, the information contained in the EIS was sufficiently detailed for that document to serve the purposes for which it was designed.