Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Inc. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was required to consider non-gas alternatives when it granted authorization for a 24-mile natural gas pipeline to serve new gas turbines included in a plan approved by the State of Indiana. The court described the plan as involving retirement of coal-fired facilities and replacement with wind and solar energy sources, with the gas turbines included to ensure reliability. Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the D.C. Circuit found that FERC did not have jurisdiction over non-gas alternatives and therefore properly declined to consider them in its alternatives analysis. The court said that “Congress entrusted the choice of electricity generation to the States, and FERC has no authority to second-guess those choices on environmental or any other grounds” and that FERC had reasonably identified the purpose of the pipeline project as supporting the new gas units rather than defining the purpose more broadly as promoting solar and wind energy. The D.C. Circuit also upheld FERC’s approach to disclosing the project’s greenhouse gas emissions, which involved reporting the project’s emissions as a percentage of state and national total emissions. In addition, the court rejected the contention that it was arbitrary and capricious or a violation of NEPA not to label the project’s impacts on emissions as “significant” or “not significant.” The court said the NEPA argument was now foreclosed by <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/food-water-watch-v-federal-energy-regulatory-commission-2/">precedent</a>. Under the Natural Gas Act, the D.C. Circuit rejected the petitioner’s contention that FERC could not consider emissions reductions from retirement of the coal-fired facilities when assessing the pipeline project’s public convenience and necessity. The court also rejected the argument that FERC acted unreasonably by failing to respond to a rehearing petition, which instead was denied by operation of law.