An appellate court found serious flaws in the Department of Energy’s process for designating transmission corridors in Southern California, the Southwest, and Mid-Atlantic region. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on a 2-1 vote Feb.1 held that DOE failed to properly consult with California and other affected states. It ordered the agency to redo its congestion study for areas potentially impacted. The court also ruled that the corridor designations must be accompanied by at least an environmental assessment. DOE excluded California and other states from an “invitation only” workshop on the congestion study in May 2006, and failed to reveal the underlying modeling data, according to judges Consuelo Callahan and William Canby. “There can be no doubt that the modeling data was critical to DOE’s study,” wrote the court. “Consultation requires an exchange of information and opinions before the agency makes a decision” (emphasis in original). None of the current transmission work approved by the California Independent System Operator “is impacted by this corridor issue,” said Southern California Edison spokesperson Paul Klein. The ruling also does not impact San Diego Gas & Electric’s approved Sunrise Powerlink high voltage line, according to SDG&E. DOE is reviewing the decision and declined to comment, said department spokesperson Tiffany Edwards. In January 2008, DOE faced a conservation group’s lawsuit for failing to analyze the impacts of the Southwestern U.S. corridor project. The aim was to alleviate transmission congestion that affects most of Southern California, as well as the southwest corner of Arizona. The area includes Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties and three counties in Southwest Arizona, but excludes Las Vegas. The federal transmission corridor designation--which would expedite permitting for transmission lines--would be effective for 12 years. The ruling also directed development of an environmental assessment to analyze possible corridor impacts. The court noted that the “effects may be difficult to measure and may be determined ultimately to be too imprecise to influence the designation, but this is precisely the type of determination that only can be intelligently made after the preparation of at least an [Environmental Assessment].” One of the three panel judges dissented, finding that the DOE committed an error but that it did come close to the legal threshold of being “harmful error.” “This is a tale of two errors,” wrote Judge Sandra Ikuta. She added that there was not “a scintilla of evidence to establish prejudice” to the affected parties.
