Expedited NEPA Review for Alternative Energy Projects

• Date: 01 July 2009

7-2009 nEwS & anaLYSiS 39 ELR 10581

D I A L O G U E

Expedited NEPA Review for

Alternative Energy Projects

March 10, 2009

Panelists:

Sharon Buccino, Natural Resource Defense Council

Horst Greczmiel, Council on Environmental Quality

omas C. Jensen, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP

Je Wright, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Scott Schang: Our conversation today is about expedited

NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act1] review and

what t hat really means. We’ll see if our panelists can help

us come up with a denition for that. is got star ted a

couple of months ago when it became clear t hat siting new

transmission lines to try to tie alternative energy sources

into the grid was going to run up against NEPA and other

environmental reviews. At the Environmental Law Institute,

we were concerned that, once a gain, environmental law was

being port rayed as standing in the way of progress. So, we

started thinking about that and talking with folks; then

events overtook us. Between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s

letter suggesting that NEPA be expedited a nd/or waived,

and some amendments that were suggested to the stimulus

bill, expedited NEPA review became very rea l.

We convened a conference call among 20 or 25 very

knowledgeable NEPA experts to talk about what NEPA

review meant to them and how to expedite review while

remaining true to the core principles of NEPA. e call a lso

discussed consideration of alternatives, involvement of the

public, and doing environmental review in an intelligent

way without looking at waivers in particular. at ca ll was

a very interesting discussion, and it led us to gather this

panel here tod ay.2

e purpose of the panel is to discuss with you what expe-

dited NEPA review really means. Expedited review has been

done before. It isn’t something new or necessarily novel, so,

we want to rst walk through what has been happening in

the past. What are past examples of NEPA expedited review?

When has NEPA worked very quickly? W hat has worked

and what hasn’t? Can we derive any principles around expe-

dited NEPA review from that discussion? For those who have

been involved in NEPA for a very long time, this may not be

anything particularly new, but for those of us who are newer

to the area, we might learn from the past. en we’ll also

1. 42 U.S.C. §§4321-4370f, ELR S. NEPA §§2-209.

2. Many of the materials referenced and discussed in this transcript are available

for download at http://www.eli.org/Seminars/past_event.cfm?eventid=453.

discuss how this applies to utilities in siting new transmission

lines to see if there are any lessons we can learn from that

example in particular.

We’re fortunate to have four very distinguished speakers

with us here today. We have Sharon Buccino, who is a senior

attorney and director of the Natura l Resources Defense

Council’s (NRDC’s) land program. Her work focuses on

protecting America’s public lands in the courts, before Con-

gress, and at federal agencies. She has litigated ca ses under

NEPA, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Free-

dom of Information Act. Before joining NRDC in 1993,

Sharon clerked for the Alaska Supreme Court and worked

for a private law rm in Washington, D.C.

Next to me is Horst Greczmiel, who joined the Council

on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in November 1999 as the

Associate Director for NEPA oversight. He is responsible for

overseeing and implementing NEPA and CEQ ma ndates to

ensure that federal agencies integrate environmental va lues

into decisionmaking. Prior to joining CEQ, Horst worked in

the Oce of Environmental Law at the Coast Guard Head-

quarters in Washington, D.C., served in the U.S. A rmy for

15 years, including tours with t he Judge Advocate General’s

Environmental Law Division, and served as environmen-

tal adviser to the deputy a ssistant secretary of the Army for

Environment Safety and Occupational Health.

We also are glad to have Tom Jensen with us. Tom serves

as chair of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal’s rmwide

committee on environmental sustainability. He’s a nat ion-

ally recognized expert in natural resources, energy, and

environmental law and policy. He leads the rm’s renewable

energy and natura l resources practices. Prior to joining Son-

nenschein, he served in the CEQ as associate director for

natural resources, as executive director of the Grand Can-

yon Trust, and as majority counsel for the U.S. Senate Com-

mittee on Energy a nd Natural Resources subcommittee on

water and power.

And we are also very glad to have with us Je Wright, who

is deputy director of the Federal Energy Regulatory Com-

mission’s (FERC’s) Oce of Energy Projects. His oce is

responsible for processing applications for the construction

and operation of natural gas pipelines and storage facilities

for interstate and foreign commerce, including liqueed nat-

ural gas, licenses for nonfederal hydroelectric projects, and

the management of license compliance and dam safet y pro-

grams. In addition, t he oce administers the supplemental

siting authority for interstate electric transmission facilities

granted by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Previously, Je