Commissioner Richard Glick Statement
September 11, 2020
Docket No. CP17-178-001
Order
I dissent from today’s order because it violates both the Natural Gas Act[1] (NGA) and the National Environmental Policy Act[2] (NEPA). Rather than wrestling with the Alaska LNG Project’s[3] significant adverse impacts, today’s order continues to make clear that the Commission will not allow anything to get in the way of its rushed approval.
As an initial matter, the Commission continues to treat climate change differently than all other environmental impacts. The Commission steadfastly refuses to assess whether the impact of the Project’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on climate change is significant, even though it quantified the GHG emissions caused by the Project’s construction and operation.[4] That refusal to assess the significance of the Project’s contribution to the harm caused by climate change is what allows the Commission to perfunctorily conclude that the environmental impacts associated with the Project are “acceptable”[5] and, as a result, that the Project satisfies the NGA’s public interest standard.[6] Claiming that a project’s environmental impacts are acceptable, while at the same time refusing to assess the significance of the Project’s impact on the most important environmental issue of our time, is not reasoned decisionmaking.
Moreover, the Commission’s public interest analysis still does not adequately wrestle with the Project’s other adverse environmental impacts. In the Certificate Order, the Commission found that the Project will have a significant and adverse effect on several endangered and threatened species, the Central Artic Herd of caribou, permafrost, forest, and air quality.[7] Although the Commission disclosed these adverse impacts, at no point did it explain how it considered them in making its public interest determination or why it found that the Project satisfies the public interest standard notwithstanding those impacts. Reciting a list of adverse impacts is not the same thing as giving them meaningful consideration or explaining why, in light of those many and significant impacts, the Commission can be so certain that the Project is not inconsistent with the public interest.
Finally, this Project is unprecedented in both scale and scope, stretching 800 miles across the unique and fragile ecosystem of Northern Alaska. Many of the challenges presented by this project are first-of-their-kind and demand in-depth and rigorous examination.[8] Certain environmental impacts in particular are ones which the Commission, and even industry, has little experience with, giving us precious little to go on in assessing the magnitude of the impacts and designing appropriate mitigation.[9] And yet, the Commission rushed to issue this certificate while many unknowns still linger. The need for such haste, particularly against a backdrop of a global pandemic, a cratering LNG market, and little reason to believe that the developers were anywhere near ready to commence construction of the Project has never been explained.[10]
The Commission’s Public Interest Determination Is Not the Product of Reasoned Decisionmaking
The NGA’s regulation of LNG import and export facilities “implicate[s] a tangled web of regulatory processes” split between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Commission.[11] The NGA establishes a general presumption favoring the import and export of LNG unless there is an affirmative finding that the import or export “will not be consistent with the public interest.”[12] Section 3 of the NGA provides for two independent public interest determinations: One regarding the import or export of LNG itself and one regarding the facilities used for that import or export.
DOE determines whether the import or export of LNG is consistent with the public interest, with transactions among free trade countries legislatively deemed to be “consistent with the public interest.”[13] The Commission evaluates whether “an application for the siting, construction, expansion, or operation of an LNG terminal” is itself consistent with the public interest.[14] Pursuant to that authority, the Commission must approve a proposed LNG facility unless the record shows that the facility would be inconsistent with the public interest.[15] Today’s order fails to satisfy that standard in multiple respects.
The Commission’s Public Interest Determination Does Not Adequately Consider Climate Change
In making its public interest determination, the Commission examines a proposed facility’s impact on the environment and public safety. A facility’s impact on climate change is one of the environmental impacts that must be part of a public interest determination under the NGA.[16] Nevertheless, in this proceeding as in others, the Commission maintains that it need not consider and ultimately determine whether the Project’s contribution to climate change is significant because it lacks a means to do so—or at least so it claims.[17] However, the most troubling part of the Commission’s rationale is what comes next. Based on this alleged inability to assess the significance of the Project’s impact on climate change, the Commission still concludes that all the Project’s environmental impacts are “acceptable.”[18] Think about that. The Commission is simultaneously stating that it cannot assess the significance of the Project’s impact on climate change,[19] while concluding that all environmental impacts associated with the Project are acceptable and not inconsistent with the public interest.[20] That is unreasoned and an abdication of our responsibility to give climate change the “hard look” that the law demands.[21]
It also means that the Project’s impact on climate change cannot, and does not, play a meaningful role in the Commission’s public interest determination, no matter how often the Commission assures us that it does. Using the approach taken in this proceeding, the Commission will always be able to conclude that a project will not have a significant environmental impact irrespective of that project’s actual GHG emissions or those emissions’ impact on climate change. Because the Commission’s conclusion will not change no matter how many GHG emissions a project causes, those emissions cannot, as a logical matter, play a meaningful role in the Commission’s public interest determination. A public interest determination that systematically excludes the most important environmental consideration of our time is contrary to law, arbitrary and capricious, and not the product of reasoned decisionmaking.
The failure to meaningfully consider GHG emissions is all-the-more indefensible given the volume of emissions associated with this Project in particular. Upon completion, the Project will directly emit up to 16.3 million tons of GHG emissions per year, on top of the more than 2 million tons emitted during construction.[22] 16 million tons will increase Alaska’s total annual GHG emissions by nearly 50%.[23] Put another way, the Project’s projected annual GHG emissions are the equivalent of 3.5 million vehicles, four times the number of passenger vehicles currently on the road in the entire state of Alaska.[24]
Even the Commission recognizes that climate change is “driven by accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere through combustion of fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, and natural gas), combined with agriculture, clearing of forests, and other natural sources”[25] and that the “GHG emissions from the construction and operation of the [P]roject would increase the atmospheric concentration of GHGs in combination with past and future emissions from all other sources and contribute incrementally to future climate change impacts.”[26] In light of this undisputed relationship between anthropogenic GHG emissions and climate change, the Commission must carefully consider the Project’s contribution to climate change when determining whether the Project is consistent with the public interest—a task that it entirely fails to accomplish in today’s order.
The Commission’s Consideration of the Project’s Other Adverse Impacts Is Also Arbitrary and Capricious
In addition, the Project will result in several other significant, often permanent, adverse impacts on the environment. The Project is expected to harm several endangered and threatened species including polar bears, seals, and whales.[27] Further, even with mitigation measures, the Project is expected to have a significant adverse impact on the Central Artic Herd of caribou, permafrost, forest, and air quality in areas such as Denali National Park.[28] Although the Commission disclosed these adverse impacts in the EIS and the Certificate Order,[29] it makes no effort to wrestle with them or explain how they factor meaningfully into the Commission’s public interest analysis. Simply deeming these adverse impacts “acceptable,” without any explanation of how that conclusory finding supports the Commission’s public interest determination, is a far cry from reasoned decisionmaking.
In its request for rehearing, the Center for Biological Diversity makes this very point.[30] The Commission tersely responds by reciting its burden of proof—namely that section 3 of the NGA “sets out a general presumption favoring” authorizations unless the project is inconsistent with the public interest.[31] The Commission then summarily concludes that the Project’s significant adverse environmental impacts do not demonstrate an “affirmative showing of inconsistency with the public interest”[32] and that all environmental impacts are “acceptable considering the public benefits.”[33]
The burden of proof is beside the point here. My argument—and the argument presented on rehearing—is that the Commission failed to provide any discussion of why the Project satisfied the statutory standard. Indeed, the sum total of the Commission’s analysis is a laundry list of the Project’s adverse impacts, without even a sliver of explanation of the reasoning behind its assertion that this litany of adverse impacts does not make the Project inconsistent with the public interest. The Commission cannot hide behind the burden of proof as an excuse for failing to do that which is required by the NGA and basic principles of reasoned decisionmaking.[34]
Finally, the Commission’s public interest analysis fails to recognize, much less wrestle with, the considerable uncertainty inherent in developing a complex project in such a hostile and fragile ecosystem. The “LNG export terminal” at issue includes a gas processing facility located more than 800 miles away from the terminal itself (a distance roughly the size of Texas at its widest point) and a connecting pipeline that runs through a vast swathe of the Arctic.[35] The Commission has little familiarity with these circumstances, having only once before permitted a pipeline in Alaska,[36] and having “never exerted NGA section 3 jurisdiction over a project of this size.”[37] Under such circumstances, one might assume that the Commission would address that uncertainty in its public interest determination and adopt a conservative approach to managing the Project’s impacts—including rigorous mitigation measures—that reflects its limited experience.
Instead, the Commission’s public interest finding makes no mention of the uncertainty associated with the Project or the yawning gaps in our understanding of how it will affect critical natural resources. Consider the caribou. In the Certificate Order, the Commission found that running an 800-mile pipeline through the middle of the range used by the Central Arctic Herd of caribou will have a significant adverse effect on both the animals and the communities that rely on them for subsistence[38]—which, if anything, seems like an understatement. Nevertheless, the Commission requires the Project’s developer to study those effects only after the Project has gone into service, with the suggestion that the Commission may impose yet to be developed mitigation measures at some point in the future.[39] I recognize that not all the impacts of such an unprecedented project can be understood and accounted for a decade before it is built and, with that in mind, I support the effort to collect more information. Still, I would have thought that reasoned decisionmaking requires the Commission to account for that uncertainty in its public interest determination and, at the very least, explain why it is so confident that the impact on the caribou—and the people that depend on them—is “acceptable.” The failure to do so only underscores the extent to which the Commission has papered over the hard questions in its rush to approve the Project.
The Commission Fails to Satisfy Its Obligations under NEPA
The Commission’s NEPA analysis of the Project’s GHG emissions is similarly flawed. In order to evaluate the environmental consequences of the Project under NEPA, the Commission must consider the harm caused by its GHG emissions and “evaluate the ‘incremental impact’ that those emissions will have on climate change and the environment more generally.”[40] As noted, operating the Project will emit more than 16 million tons of GHGs per year.[41] Although quantifying the Project’s GHG emissions is a necessary step toward meeting the Commission’s NEPA obligations, listing the volume of emissions alone is insufficient.[42]
As an initial matter, identifying the consequences that those emissions will have for climate change is essential if NEPA is to play the disclosure and good government roles for which it was designed. The Supreme Court has explained that NEPA’s purpose is to “ensure[] that the agency, in reaching its decision, will have available, and will carefully consider, detailed information concerning significant environmental impacts” and to “guarantee[] that the relevant information will be made available to the larger audience that may also play a role in both the decisionmaking process and the implementation of that decision.”[43] It is hard to see how hiding the ball by refusing to assess the significance of the Project’s climate impacts is consistent with either of those purposes.
In addition, under NEPA, a finding of significance informs the Commission’s inquiry into potential ways of mitigating the identified environmental impacts. An environmental review document must “contain a detailed discussion of possible mitigation measures” to address adverse environmental impacts.[44] “Without such a discussion, neither the agency nor other interested groups and individuals can properly evaluate the severity of the adverse effects” of a project, meaning that an examination of possible mitigation measures is necessary to ensure that the agency has taken a “hard look” at the environmental consequences of the action at issue.[45]
The Commission responds that it need not determine whether the Project’s contribution to climate change is significant because “[t]here is no universally accepted methodology” for assessing the resulting harm.[46] But that does not excuse the Commission’s failure to evaluate these emissions. As an initial matter, the lack of a single consensus methodology does not prevent the Commission from adopting a methodology, even if it is not universally accepted. The Commission could, for example, select one methodology to inform its reasoning, while also disclosing its potential limitations. Or, the Commission could employ multiple methodologies to identify a range of potential impacts on climate change. In refusing to assess a project’s climate impacts without a perfect model for doing so, the Commission sets a standard for its climate analysis that is higher than it requires for any other environmental impact.
Furthermore, even without a formal tool or methodology, the Commission can use its expertise to consider all factors and determine, quantitatively or qualitatively, whether the Project’s GHG emissions have a significant impact on climate change. After all, that is precisely what the Commission did in other aspects of its environmental review. Consider, for example, the Commission’s findings that the Project will not have a significant effect on issues such as “scrub and herbaceous plant communities,”[47] “subsistence users,”[48] and “forest communities.”[49] Notwithstanding the lack of any “universally-accepted methodology” to assess those impacts, the Commission used its judgment to conduct a qualitative review and determine the significance of the Project’s effects.[50] The Commission’s refusal to, at the very least, exercise similar qualitative judgment to assess the significance of GHG emissions here is arbitrary and capricious.
The Commission also suggests that it cannot determine the significance of the Project’s GHG emissions because it does not have “the ability to determine discrete resource impacts.”[51] More nonsense. The Commission acknowledges that every single ton of GHG emissions, including those from the Project,[52] contributes to climate change, which causes discrete adverse effects in the Project region and across the globe.[53] That is more than enough of a basis to evaluate the effects of the Project’s GHG emissions on climate change. After all, even the recent Council on Environmental Quality’s draft NEPA guidance on consideration of GHG emissions—hardly a radical environmental manifesto—recognizes that the quantity of GHG emissions “may be used as a proxy for assessing potential climate effects.”[54] And yet, contrary to even that guidance, the Commission insists that a quantity of GHG emissions cannot be used to tell us anything about the Project’s effects on climate change or the significance thereof.[55] That proposition makes sense only if you do not believe that there is a direct relationship between GHG emissions and climate change.
In any case, as noted, the Commission does not apply this same standard when assessing the significance of the Project’s other environmental impacts. For example, consider the Commission’s assessment of the Project’s impact on wetlands. In response to the argument that the Commission was wrong to omit a “functional assessment” of the Project’s impact on affected wetlands, the Commission insists that proxy figures such as “miles or acres of impacted wetlands are sufficient and appropriate metrics to incorporate wetland impacts as part of the broader comparison.”[56] The Commission also argues that requiring any discussion of the “specific nature” of these impacts is unnecessary because it “defies the rule of reason under NEPA.”[57] Yet, this is exactly the standard the Commission suggests it must meet to assess the significance of the Project’s impact on climate change.[58] The Commission’s insistence that it cannot take a similar approach to assessing the effects of the Project on climate change is arbitrary and capricious.
In today’s order, the Commission, for the first time in this proceeding, claims that it “discussed the significance” of the Project’s GHG emissions by merely quantifying the estimated emissions.[59] That paltry “discussion,” if it can be so described, is not accompanied by an effort to actually assess the significance of those emissions, and is by no means the hard look at the environmental impacts of climate change that the law requires. Reciting the number of GHG emissions without making any attempt to assess their significance or the resulting environmental impacts is going through the motions, not meaningful environmental analysis. And, as noted, it is also inconsistent with other parts of today’s order, wherein the Commission routinely considers similar numbers as the basis for assessing the significance of various other environmental impacts.[60] But, of course, my colleagues continue to treat climate change differently.
In any case, even if the Commission were to determine that the Project’s GHG emissions are significant, that would not be the end of the analysis. Instead, the Commission could blunt those impacts through mitigation—as the Commission often does with other environmental impacts. The Supreme Court has held that an environmental review must “contain a detailed discussion of possible mitigation measures” to address adverse environmental impacts.[61] As noted above, “[w]ithout such a discussion, neither the agency nor other interested groups and individuals can properly evaluate the severity of the adverse effects.”[62]
Consistent with this obligation, the EIS discussed mitigation measures to ensure that the Project’s other adverse environmental impacts (i.e., not including its GHG emissions) are reduced to what the Commission deems acceptable levels.[63] The Commission uses its broad conditioning authority under section 3 of the NGA[64] to implement these mitigation measures, which support its public interest finding.[65] But the Project’s climate impacts continue to be treated differently, as the Commission refuses to identify any potential climate mitigation measures or discuss how such measures might affect the magnitude of the Project’s impact on climate change.
Finally, the Commission’s refusal to seriously consider the significance of the impact of the Project’s GHG emissions is even more mystifying because NEPA “does not dictate particular decisional outcomes.”[66] Instead, NEPA “merely prohibits uninformed—rather than unwise—agency action.”[67] The Commission could find that a project contributes significantly to climate change, but that it is nevertheless in the public interest because its benefits outweigh its adverse impacts, including on climate change. In other words, taking the matter seriously—and rigorously examining a project’s impacts on climate change—does not necessarily prevent any of my colleagues from ultimately concluding that a project satisfies the relevant public interest standard.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
[1] 15 U.S.C. § 717b (2018).
[2] National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321 et seq.
[3] The Project consists of a gas treatment plant located on Alaska’s North Slope; two natural gas pipelines connecting production units to the gas treatment plant, as well as an 806.9-mile-long, 42-inch-diameter pipeline (Mainline Pipeline); eight compressor stations; and liquefaction facilities on the Kenai Peninsula.
[4] Alaska Gasline Dev. Corp., 171 FERC ¶ 61,134, at P 214 (2020) (Certificate Order); Final Environmental Impact Statement at § 4.15, tbls.4.15.4-1‒4.15.4-5, 4.15.5-1, 4.15.5-10‒4.15.5-15, 4.15.5-20 (EIS); see also Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at PP 211, 213 (providing corrections to the GHG figures in the EIS).
[5] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 251.
[6] Id.; see Alaska Gasline Dev. Corp., 172 FERC ¶ 61,214, at P 16 (2020) (Rehearing Order).
[7] See, e.g., Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 25; EIS at ES-7 and 5-1.
[8] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 9 (“[W]e have never exerted NGA section 3 jurisdiction over a project of this size. However, the scope of these facilities is a function of the unique nature of Alaska.”).
[9] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at PP 64, 71-74 (permafrost); id. at PP 102-105 (caribou).
[10] Instead, all we get is a reference to unenumerated “practicalities” that supposedly demanded the rush to approve the Project before even receiving critical information from other agencies. See Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,214 at PP 13, 19.
[11] Sierra Club v. FERC, 827 F.3d 36, 40 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (Freeport).
[12] 15 U.S.C. § 717b(a); see EarthReports, Inc. v. FERC, 828 F.3d 949, 953 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (citing W. Va. Pub. Servs. Comm’n v. Dep’t of Energy, 681 F.2d 847, 856 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (“NGA [section] 3, unlike [section] 7, ‘sets out a general presumption favoring such authorization.’”)). Under section 7 of the NGA, the Commission approves a proposed pipeline if it is shown to be consistent with the public interest, while under section 3, the Commission approves a proposed LNG import or export facility unless it is shown to be inconsistent with the public interest. Compare 15 U.S.C. § 717b(a) with id. § 717f(a), (e).
[13] 15 U.S.C. § 717b(c). The courts have explained that, because the authority to authorize the LNG exports rests with DOE, NEPA does not require the Commission to consider the upstream or downstream GHG emissions that may be indirect effects of the export itself when determining whether the related LNG export facility satisfies section 3 of the NGA. See Freeport, 827 F.3d at 46-47; see also Sierra Club v. FERC, 867 F.3d 1357, 1373 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (Sabal Trail) (discussing Freeport). Nevertheless, NEPA requires that the Commission consider the direct GHG emissions associated with a proposed LNG export facility. See Freeport, 827 F.3d at 41, 46.
[14] 15 U.S.C. § 717b(e). In 1977, Congress transferred the regulatory functions of NGA section 3 to DOE. DOE, however, subsequently delegated to the Commission authority to approve or deny an application for the siting, construction, expansion, or operation of an LNG terminal, while retaining the authority to determine whether the import or export of LNG to non-free trade countries is in the public interest. See EarthReports, 828 F.3d at 952-53.
[15] See Freeport, 827 F.3d at 40-41.
[16] See Atl. Ref. Co. v. Pub. Serv. Comm’n of N.Y., 360 U.S. 378, 391 (1959) (holding that the NGA requires the Commission to consider “all factors bearing on the public interest”); see also Sabal Trail, 867 F.3d at 1373 (explaining that the Commission must consider a pipeline’s direct and indirect GHG emissions because the Commission may “deny a pipeline certificate on the ground that the pipeline would be too harmful to the environment”).
[17] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 216; EIS at 4-1222.
[18] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 251.
[19] Id. P 216; see also EIS at 4-1222 (“[W]e are unable to determine the significance of the Project’s contribution to climate change.”).
[20] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 251; see Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,214 at P 16.
[21] See, e.g., Myersville Citizens for a Rural Cmty., Inc. v. FERC, 783 F.3d 1301, 1322 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (explaining that agencies cannot overlook a single environmental consequence if it is even “arguably significant”); see also Michigan v. EPA, 135 S. Ct. 2699, 2706 (2015) (“Not only must an agency’s decreed result be within the scope of its lawful authority, but the process by which it reaches that result must be logical and rational.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983) (explaining that agency action is “arbitrary and capricious if the agency has . . . entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem, [or] offered an explanation for its decision that runs counter to the evidence before the agency”).
[22] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 214; EIS at § 4.15, tbls.4.15.4-1‒4.15.4-5 (construction emissions by construction year); EIS at tbls.4.15.5-1, 4.15.5-10‒4.15.5-15, 4.15.5-20 (annual operational emissions); see also Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at PP 211, 213 (providing corrections to the GHG figures in the EIS).
[23] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 214.
[24] This figure was calculated using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator. See U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator, https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator (last visited Sept. 9, 2019).
[25] EIS at 4-1220.
[26] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 216; EIS at 4-1221.
[27] The Biological Opinions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) were completed after the Commission issued the Certificate Order. Those opinions concluded that the Project is likely to adversely affect the polar bear, spectacled eider, bowhead whale, fin whale, humpback whale, sperm whale, Cook Inlet beluga whale, ringed seal, and bearded seal. See FWS June 17, 2020 Biological Opinion, Docket No. CP17-178-000; NMFS June 3, 2020 Biological Opinion, Docket No. CP17-178-000.
[28] EIS at ES-7, 5-1.
[29] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 25 (generally); id. P 74 (permafrost); id. P 91 (forest communities); id. P 105 (Central Artic Herd of caribou); id. P 209 (air quality in nationally designated areas).
[30] Center for Biological Diversity Rehearing Request at 11.
[31] Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,214 at P 16; Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at PP 16-17.
[32] Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,214 at P 16; see also Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 14 (finding the environmental impacts “do not amount to an affirmative showing of inconsistency with the public interest”).
[33] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 251.
[34] Turlock Irrigation Dist. v. FERC, 786 F.3d 18, 25 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (“explaining that reasoned decision making requires not only substantial evidence, but also “‘a reasoned explanation supported by a stated connection between the facts found and the choice made’” (quoting U.S. Dept. of Interior v. FERC, 952 F.2d 538, 543 (D.C. Cir. 1992)). The Commission also suggests that NGA section 3 and section 7 present “decidedly different standard[s]” governing the review of an LNG facility and a pipeline, respectively. Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,214 at P 16. In fact, however, they present the same standard—the public interest—but with differing burdens of proof. See supra note 12. Taken seriously, the Commission’s position amounts to the argument that it need not explain how it applied that standard because the Project is presumed to be in the public interest. I am not aware of any authority for the proposition that an agency’s obligation to engage in reasoned decisionmaking is, even partially, a function of who bears the burden of proof.
[35] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 4.
[36] See Yukon Pac. Co., 71 FERC ¶ 61,197 (1995). Notably, the Commission denied a request to extend the time to commence construction of that pipeline project and it ultimately was never built. See Yukon Pacific Co., Docket No. CP88-105-000 (May 14, 2010) (delegated order).
[37] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 9.
[38] Id. P 105; EIS at 4-306, 4-312.
[39] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 107; see id., app. envtl. condition 24.
[40] Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Nat’l Highway Traffic Safety Admin., 538 F.3d 1172, 1216 (9th Cir. 2008); WildEarth Guardians v. Zinke, 368 F. Supp. 3d 41, 51 (D.D.C. 2019) (explaining that the agency was required to “provide the information necessary for the public and agency decisionmakers to understand the degree to which [its] decisions at issue would contribute” to the “impacts of climate change in the state, the region, and across the country”).
[41] See supra note 22.
[42] See Ctr. for Biological Diversity, 538 F.3d at 1216 (“While the [environmental document] quantifies the expected amount of CO2 emitted . . . , it does not evaluate the ‘incremental impact’ that these emissions will have on climate change or on the environment more generally.”); Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Ctr. v. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 387 F.3d 989, 995 (9th Cir. 2004) (“A calculation of the total number of acres to be harvested in the watershed is a necessary component . . . , but it is not a sufficient description of the actual environmental effects that can be expected from logging those acres.”).
[43] Dep’t of Transp. v. Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. 752, 768 (2004) (citing Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens Council, 490 U.S. 332, 349 (1989)).
[44] Robertson, 490 U.S. at 351.
[45] Id. at 352.
[46] EIS at 4-1222 (“Currently, there is no universally accepted methodology to attribute discrete, quantifiable, physical effects on the environment to the Project’s incremental contribution to GHGs.”); see Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 216 (“Without either the ability to determine discrete resource impacts or an established target to compare GHG emissions against, the final EIS concludes that it cannot determine the significance of the project’s contribution to climate change.”).
[47] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 89 (finding that the “impacts on scrub and herbaceous plant communities would be less than significant” based on a qualitative assessment of “the small areas affected relative to the larger watersheds and their shorter recovery time relative to forest communities”).
[48] The EIS states that the Project “could have long-term or permanent effects” on some subsistence users and communities that rely on affected land and resources to support their way of life by, for example, “altering caribou migration patterns,” which would “result in a disproportionate impact on the minority and low-income populations in Utqiagvik, Nuiqsut, and Anaktuvuk Pass.” EIS at 4-693. Nevertheless, the Commission states that it “do[es] not expect those impacts would be high and adverse,” although it does not point to any “universally-accepted methodology” or other approach for determining what constitutes a “high and adverse” impact. Id.
[49] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at PP 90-91 (finding that the Project would results in the permanent loss of 8,512 acres of forest and these“[i]mpacts on forest communities would be significant given the amount of habitat affected and the longer recovery period for this vegetation type,” yet the Commission provides no universal methodology for determining that this quantity of impact would result in significant impacts on the environment); EIS at 4-282.
[50] The Commission explains that it looks to “the duration of the impact as well as the geographic, biological, and/or social context in which the effects would occur, and the intensity (e.g., severity) of the impact,” further acknowledging that “[t]he context and intensity vary by resource and impact.” EIS at 4-1.
[51] Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 216; EIS at 4-1222 (“Absent such a method for relating GHG emissions to specific resource impacts, we are not able to assess potential GHG-related impacts attributable to this Project.”)
[52] Certificate Order 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 216; EIS at 4-1221 (“Project construction and operation would increase the atmospheric concentration of GHGs in combination with past and future emissions from all other sources and contribute incrementally to future climate change impacts.”).
[53] EIS at 4-1221 (acknowledging specific climate change impacts in the Project region with a high or very high level of confidence include annual temperature increases near each of the Project’s facilities, increased annual precipitation, sea ice loss, and increased ocean acidification).
[54] Draft National Environmental Policy Act Guidance on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 84 Fed. Reg. 30,097, 30,098 (June 26, 2019) (“A projection of a proposed action’s direct and reasonably foreseeable indirect GHG emissions may be used as a proxy for assessing potential climate effects.”).
[55] Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,214 at P 77; Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 216; EIS at 4-1222.
[56] Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,214 at P 68.
[57] Id.
[58] EIS at 4-1222 (“[T]here is no universally accepted methodology to attribute discrete, quantifiable, physical effects on the environment to the Project’s incremental contribution to GHGs. . . . Absent such a method for relating GHG emissions to specific resource impacts, we are not able to assess potential GHG-related impacts attributable to this Project.”).
[59] Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,214 at P 77.
[60] See supra PP 20-22.
[61] Robertson, 490 U.S. at 351.
[62] Id. at 351-52; see also 40 C.F.R. § 1508.20 (2019) (defining mitigation); id. § 1508.25 (including in the scope of an environmental impact statement mitigation measures).
[63] See, e.g., Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at n.39 (generally); id. PP 124, 128 (essential fish habitat ); id. P 163 (visual resources).
[64] 15 U.S.C. § 717b(e)(3)(A); Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 250 (“[T]he Commission has the authority to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure the protection of environmental resources . . . , including authority to impose any additional measures deemed necessary to ensure continued compliance with the intent of the conditions of the order.”).
[65] See Certificate Order, 171 FERC ¶ 61,134 at P 250 (explaining that the environmental conditions ensure that the Project’s environmental impacts are consistent with those anticipated by the environmental analysis).
[66] Sierra Club v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 803 F.3d 31, 37 (D.C. Cir. 2015).
[67] Id. (quoting Robertson, 490 U.S. at 351).