Widening the class of actions needing no environmental review — what happens when a hydropower licence ends
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission amended its environmental review regulations to add certain terminations and revocations of water power licences to the class of actions requiring no individual review, limited to cases with minor or no ground disturbance and minor or no change to reservoir and downstream conditions.
Document overview (primary data)
- Document typeRule
- AgencyDepartment of Energy
- Citation91 FR 46267
Key points
- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission widened the class of actions requiring no individual environmental review.
- The addition covers certain terminations or revocations of water power licences and exemptions.
- The conditions are minor or no ground disturbing activity and minor or no change in reservoir conditions and downstream flows.
- Ending a project, not only starting one, is a federal action capable of falling within environmental review.
- A categorical exclusion directs limited resources to cases with significant effects rather than abandoning environmental care.
1A class needing no review
The National Environmental Policy Act requires environmental effects of federally involved actions to be considered and disclosed in advance. Reviewing every action individually would leave procedure unable to function, so classes of action ordinarily thought to have no significant effect are identified in advance, and actions within them skip individual review. These are categorical exclusions.
A categorical exclusion is not an abandonment of environmental care. Judging in advance that a class ordinarily has no significant effect is how limited resources are directed to the cases that do.
2Ending something also needed review
- 1SubjectTerminations or revocations of water power licences and exemptions
- 2First conditionMinor or no ground disturbing activity results
- 3Second conditionMinor or no changes in reservoir conditions and downstream flows result
- 4EffectWhere these hold, no individual environmental review is required
What is striking is that the subject is not starting a project but ending one. Terminating or revoking a licence is itself a federal action and so can fall within environmental review. Yet where a facility stays as it is and only the licence ends, little about the environment changes. This rule carves out that situation as a class.
3The conditions attached
Two conditions bound the widened exclusion: minor or no ground disturbing activity, and minor or no change in reservoir conditions and downstream flows. Where the end of a hydropower licence brings removal of a dam or a change in how water is released, effects are not small. Where the conditions are not met, individual review continues to apply.
4Each agency writes its own
Categorical exclusions sit in each agency own regulations. This site also covers three Transportation Department agencies finalizing their own environmental review rules after the government-wide regulations were removed, and the same structure of agency-by-agency procedure appears here.
Why it matters
Whether environmental review is required shapes the timeline and cost of a project. Because falling inside or outside a class changes the procedure, how the conditions are written bears on project design.
FAQ
What is a categorical exclusion?
Why would ending a licence need review?
Sources (primary)
Source: Federal Register (federal documents, public domain). Links go to the official site.