Opinion ID: 597401
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Ripeness of Petitioners' Claims

Text: 38 Because several of petitioners' claims relate to matters still pending before FERC, respondents argue that those claims are not presently ripe for judicial review. The claims are that FERC should (1) revoke its prior authorization for TN Gas to commence construction of its leg of the pipeline, in light of RIDEM's later suspension of TN Gas's permit to construct the part of the pipeline traversing previously unknown wetlands, and (2) rescind the OPPR Director's letter-order approving the alternative route for the Providence Gas pipeline construction. Petitioners raised the first issue in a motion to vacate or suspend and raised the second issue in a timely motion for rehearing. FERC granted the rehearing petition but has yet to rule definitively on the claims the petition and the motion raised. FERC points out that through further proceedings before FERC or RIDEM, those matters might well be resolved altogether, thus obviating the need for judicial review. Petitioners have offered no response at all to FERC's ripeness argument in their brief and offered no meaningful response at oral argument in response to questions from the Court. 39 In view of our holding that the untimeliness of petitioners' challenge to FERC's approval of the Providence Gas construction deprives us of jurisdiction over that claim, we need not decide whether that claim is ripe. As to petitioners' argument that FERC should not have authorized TN Gas to commence construction, we, like petitioners, find FERC's ripeness argument unanswerable. Administrative action is ripe for judicial review if (1) the issues tendered are appropriate for judicial resolution at the present time and (2) the hardship to the parties if judicial review is denied at that stage favors immediate judicial review. Toilet Goods Ass'n v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 158, 162, 87 S.Ct. 1520, 1523, 18 L.Ed.2d 697 (1967). The issue FERC has identified fails at the first step of the Toilet Goods test, and petitioners have not even suggested that they will suffer hardship if we do not address their challenge now. Petitioners' claim does not present us with a pure question of law. To the contrary, it appears to involve complicated and sensitive administrative applications of law and policy to unsettled and ever-shifting factual developments. Also, given the pendency of petitioners' timely motion to vacate or suspend the challenged FERC decision is not even final. 40 Issues that remain pending before FERC are inappropriate for judicial resolution as a matter of law and therefore are unripe, at least in the absence of a substantial showing of hardship. Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. Federal Power Comm'n, 526 F.2d 898, 910 (5th Cir.1976) (holding that matters still pending before the Commission ... [are] not yet ripe for judicial review); see also Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Federal Power Comm'n, 510 F.2d 198, 210 (D.C.Cir.1975) (holding that in view of the proceedings now being conducted by the Commission ... the [challenged] determination of the Commission is not ripe for review); California Co. v. Federal Power Comm'n, 411 F.2d 720, 721 (D.C.Cir.1969) (per curiam) (holding that petitions for review filed prior to [the Commission's] decision on the merits of the applications for rehearing are premature). We consequently hold that petitioners' claim that FERC erred in authorizing TN Gas to begin construction is not presently ripe for judicial review and will not become ripe [299 U.S.App.D.C. 180] until FERC acts on petitioners' motion to vacate or suspend.