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On Friday, a court ruling provided some clarity regarding the Clean Water Act (CWA) § 401 water quality certification process. As forecasted in our November 1, 2018 blog post (below), the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has ruled that a state waives its CWA § 401 authority when, pursuant to a written agreement, an applicant repeatedly withdraws and resubmits its request for water quality certification in order to restart the one-year waiver clock. Hoopa Valley Tribe v. FERC, No. 14-1271 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 25, 2019). According to the Court’s opinion, this sort of arrangement serves to circumvent the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) “congressionally granted authority over the licensing, conditioning, and developing of [the] project,” and “if allowed, the withdrawal-and-resubmission scheme could be used to indefinitely delay federal licensing proceedings and undermine FERC’s jurisdiction to regulate such matters.”…
Continue Reading UPDATE: During Oral Argument, DC Circuit Suggests Waiver Period for State Water Quality Certification May Be Less Than One Year

In recent litigation involving the development of interstate natural gas pipelines, one of the key issues has been whether the state has waived its authority under Clean Water Act section 401 by exceeding the one-year time period. In a separate case involving a series of hydroelectric facilities, the waiver period was again directly at issue. On October 1, at oral argument before the D.C. Circuit, the parties addressed whether California and Oregon had waived their water quality certification authority by having the applicant withdraw and resubmit its request for certification over a number of years. Notably, the judges seemed to agree that FERC could make a waiver determination before the end of the one-year time limit and that withdrawing and resubmitting an application may not always restart the clock.
Continue Reading During Oral Argument, D.C. Circuit Suggests Waiver Period for State Water Quality Certification May Be Less Than One Year

On March 12, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) order finding that delays by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) in reviewing Millennium Pipeline Company’s application for water quality certification constituted waiver of NYDEC’s authority under the Clean Water Act (CWA). As we detailed in an earlier blog post, FERC found that NYDEC’s delay exceeded the one-year statutory period established by CWA Section 401. The Millennium case is just one of several interstate natural gas pipeline projects that have faced delays associated with the CWA Section 401 permitting process. (See, e.g., Atlantic Bridge Project, Atlantic Sunrise Project, Constitution Pipeline, Northern Access Project, PennEast Pipeline, and Spire STL Pipeline.) The Court’s decision resolves the nearly three-year permitting process for the Millennium Valley Lateral Pipeline and clarifies for other projects (and state agencies reviewing those projects) that the one-year waiver period begins when the state agency receives the initial request for certification.
Continue Reading Second Circuit Affirms Waiver Period for State Water Quality Certification Begins Upon Receipt of Request for Certification

On January 11, 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied Constitution Pipeline Company, LLC’s Petition for a Declaratory Order that New York had waived its ability to act under section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) by failing to grant or deny Constitution’s application for a section 401 certification within a “reasonable period of time.”…
Continue Reading FERC Rules on State Waiver of Section 401 Water Quality Certification

On September 15, 2017, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) issued an order in which it concluded that delays by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC or the Department) in processing Millennium Pipeline Company’s application for Clean Water Act (CWA) water quality certification constituted a waiver of the certification requirement. …
Continue Reading FERC: Water Quality Certification Waiver Period for Pipeline Projects Begins Upon Receipt of a Written Request for Certification