Opinion ID: 3011771
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Adversity

Text: NE Hub claims that the state permit pr ocess with respect to the 30 Issues is preempted but that E.H.B. nevertheless will continue with that process unless enjoined. In these circumstances, NE Hub's and E.H.B.'s inter ests hardly could be more adverse. Nevertheless, the district court held NE Hub's inter ests insufficiently adverse to E.H.B.'s because: In order to demonstrate that its claims ar e ripe, NE _________________________________________________________________ 9. The Step-Saver rubric is a distillation of the factors most relevant to the Abbott Labs considerations. See Ridge, 150 F.3d at 323 n.4. Adversity and conclusiveness apparently ar e subsumed under the fitness prong of the Abbott Labs test, while utility is relevant both to fitness and hardship. Our cases have fit the factors relevant in the Abbott Labs framework into the Step-Saver headings, as follows: ADVERSITY: - Whether the claim involves uncertain and contingent events, or presents a real and substantial threat of harm. See, e.g.,Presbytery of N.J. v. Florio, 40 F.3d 1454, 1466 (3d Cir. 1994). CONCLUSIVENESS: - Whether issues are purely legal (as against factual). - Whether further factual development would be useful. See, e.g., id. at 1468; T ravelers Ins. Co., 72 F.3d at 1155. UTILITY: - Hardship to the parties of withholding decision. - Whether the claim involves uncertain and contingent events. See, e.g., Travelers Ins. Co. , 72 F.3d at 1155-56. Of course, there may be other factors consider ed in a ripeness analysis. 13 Hub must show that the probability of the EHB Defendants acting adversely to NE Hub is real and substantial . . . . [T]he Environmental Hearing Board Defendants have not, as yet, taken any action or issued any decision potentially conflicting with the 7(c) certificate. Further, it is entirely possible that the Environmental Hearing Board will uphold the issuance of the permits by [Pa.D.E.P.] and will never issue any decision conflicting with the federal regulatory scheme. See NE Hub, slip op. at 15-16.10 This analysis, which focuses on the possible ultimate result of the state regulatory process, does not take into account the case law that preemption may operate to spare a party from that very process. In fact, the process itself may give rise to adversity so that an action challenging the pr ocess is ripe even before the process concludes. Thus, in Freehold Cogeneration Associates, L.P. v. Boar d of Regulatory Commissioners, 44 F.3d 1178 (3d Cir . 1995), we held that a preemption challenge to ongoing proceedings before the New Jersey Board of Regulatory Commissioners invading FERC's domain was ripe even though the plaintif f did not challenge the ultimate substantive decision, but rather its authority to conduct proceedings: [T]he issue here is ripe for adjudication. The proceedings before the [state agency] have been ongoing for nearly one year. The inter est that Freehold seeks to vindicate in this proceeding is the right to be free from `state laws . . . respecting the rates . . . of electric utilities' and from the expense, delay, and uncertainty inherent in the administration of such laws. If, as Freehold insists, the ongoing[state agency] _________________________________________________________________ 10. The district court also said NE Hub's claim was based on the `possibility' that state regulatory officials might enter an order that would interfere with the regulatory scheme. Pl. Mem. Supp. Prelim. Inj. at 19. That `possibility' constitutes a contingency only, and is insufficient to constitute adversity of interests. See NE Hub, slip op. at 16. That statement mischaracterizes NE Hub's position which was that the process itself, at least as it related to the 30 Issues, interfered with the regulatory scheme. See, e.g. NE Hub's Br. in Opp'n to the E.H.B. Defendants' Mot. to Dismiss at app. at 749-51; NE Hub's Br. in Opp'n to James M. Seif 's Mot. to Dismiss at app. at 731, 734. 14 proceedings constitute state regulation of utility rates and the burdens on Freehold occasioned by those proceedings are the kinds of burdens which Congress intended [certain facilities] to be spar ed, Congress' mandate would be frustrated if Freehold's right to judicial review were postponed. Ther e is a concrete dispute that has already worked a sever e hardship upon Freehold, and a determination of the legal issue of preemption need not await any further developments . . . . Id. at 1189. In Sayles Hydro Associates v. Maughan, 985 F.2d 451, 453-54, 456 (9th Cir. 1993), a Califor nia state water board withheld a hydroelectric plant permit because the applicant did not supply certain reports and studies. The court held that a claim that the Federal Power Act preempted the ongoing state permitting process by occupying the field of power projects regulation was ripe, explaining as follows: The hardship is the process itself. Pr ocess costs money. If a federal licensee must spend years attempting to satisfy an elaborate, shifting array of state procedural requirements, then he must borrow a fortune to pay lawyers, economists, accountants, archaeologists, historians, engineers, r ecreational consultants, biologists, and others, with no r evenue, no near-term prospect of revenue, and no certainty that there ever will be revenue. Meanwhile, politics, laws, interest rates, construction costs, and costs of alternatives change. Undue process may impose cost and uncertainty sufficient to thwart the federal determination that a power project should proceed. Id. at 454. Similarly the court in Middle South Energy, Inc. v. Arkansas Public Service Commission, 772 F .2d 404 (8th Cir. 1985), found ripe a claim based on pr eemption and the Commerce Clause against ongoing Arkansas state agency proceedings determining whether to void certain interstate power purchase contracts claimed to be within FERC's sole jurisdiction. The plaintiff successfully challenge[d] not the state's ultimate substantive decision but its authority even to conduct the 15 contemplated proceeding. It can hardly be doubted that a controversy sufficiently concrete for judicial review exists when the proceeding sought to be enjoined is already in progress. Id. at 410-11. Courts have found insufficient adversity for ripeness where the chance of the defendant acting against plaintiff is but a contingency. See, e.g. , Presbytery of N.J. v. Florio, 40 F.3d 1454, 1464-68, 1470 (3d Cir. 1994) (insufficient adversity where state said it would not enfor ce challenged law against plaintiff); Armstrong World Indus., 961 F.2d at 413-14 (insufficient adversity between state and plaintiffs challenging validity of takeover law, because takeover of plaintiffs was contingency which may not occur, in which case they would not suffer from law). Her e, however, there is little doubt that E.H.B. will continue with the permit review process, and that the process itself is the alleged harm. We recognize that E.H.B. in its pr oceedings has not yet taken a position on whether it will reconsider the 30 Issues, and if so in what depth. Thus, arguably its interest is not substantively adverse to that of NE Hub. See Step-Saver, 912 F.2d at 648. Nevertheless, inasmuch as the process creates the adversity and E.H.B. has not disclaimed a right to reexamine the issues we hold that its inter est is adverse to that of NE Hub. See Supplemental letter brief of E.H.B. at 4, Sept. 13, 2000 (Because of the structur e and nature of its adjudicatory function, it is not possible for the EHB to determine what issues will be brought to its attention by CNGT and Penn Fuels in their challenge to NE Hub's permits.). At oral argument befor e us E.H.B. adhered to that position.