Three environmental groups lost their case against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) because they lacked standing. As Archimedes noted, you can move the world with a long enough lever and a fulcrum, but only so long as you have a place to stand. Without standing, not only will you fail to move the world, but — as the three groups learned too late — you will also fail to move the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The story began when Spectra Energy applied to FERC for a certificate of public convenience and necessity (a permit) to build a natural gas pipeline to New York City via Jersey City. The Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, and NO Gas Pipeline intervened in the FERC proceedings and opposed the issuance of a certificate for several reasons, notably the increased likelihood that the gas in the pipeline would cause the homes of their Jersey City members to suffer from increased levels of radon. FERC did not fnd the objections persuasive and on May 2012 issued the certificate. The three organizations and the City of Jersey petitioned the Court of Appeals to review the decision.
On July 1, 2014, the court dismissed the petition for want of jurisdiction. It had other reasons for dismissing Jersey City’s petition, but for the environmental coalition the fatal issue was standing: the court held that each group had failed to show “injury in fact,” meaning “the invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized… and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” In trying to demonstrate standing, the groups alleged that the pipeline would raise the risk of radon and terrorism, both of which could injure their Jersey City membership.
These risks were too speculative, the court decided. The supposedly heightened radon risk depended on energy companies choosing to (1) extract high-radon gas and (2) transport it without taking steps to reduce the radon levels. There was no evidence that Spectra would make these choices.
As for the terrorism threat, the court observed that the commission of an act of terrorism depends on the “intervening acts of third parties,” i.e. terrorists. Perhaps the court had in mind the perverse incentive that would result from forbidding construction of a pipeline because of the chance that terrorists might try to blow it up. If acts of violent sabotage could serve as the basis for denying permits, some pipeline opponents might find themselves unable to resist the temptation to engage in them. And, besides, there is precious little that al Qaeda et al will not target or weaponize in the realm of infrastructure (or anything else, for that matter).
Here, however, I am speculating. But if I were trying to persuade a judge to deep six a project, I would keep this public policy issue in mind and refrain from relying on the target-for-terrorism argument. The main point for readers with an interest in the Northeast Expansion Project is that for standing purposes, organizations and the individuals that they consist of must demonstrate facts that establish “actual and imminent” injury. Harms that are too contingent and attenuated will not suffice. That remains true even if the organizations intervened at the FERC stage.
The take-away: In and of itself intervening in FERC proceedings is no guarantee that the intervenor will have standing to challenge FERC’s decision in court.
Peter Vickery, Esq., 