Chairman Swett's Statement Regarding Item C-2 | Draft Policy Statement on Environmental Review of Natural Gas Act Applications

Item C-2 | Docket No. PL26-3-000 

SWETT, Chairman, concurring:

In Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the Supreme Court aptly described NEPA as a “1970 legislative acorn” that “has grown over the years into a judicial oak,” “hinder[ing] infrastructure development” through needless procedural delay and litigation.1  Today’s draft policy statement advances the Court’s call to bring NEPA “back in line with the statutory text and common sense”2 by proposing targeted, strategic, and legally durable reforms to our review of operational air emissions in connection with Commission-jurisdictional natural gas project applications.3  More broadly, the policy statement exemplifies this Commission’s dedication to facilitating conscientious prosperity for the American economy.

I. NEPA Weaponization Is a Metastasis Upon Energy Security.

Everyone acknowledges that our primary statutory responsibility is to promote development of plentiful, reliable supplies of electricity and natural gas at reasonable prices.4  NEPA reform, and permitting reform more broadly, is essential to that mission.  “America was once a nation that built,” rolling out major energy infrastructure improvements on timelines that are nearly inconceivable today.5  Since 1970, however, “productivity growth in the construction industry has been on an unyielding decline.”6  America’s “power grid has become bottlenecked,” and there are “more pipelines in service today that were built pre-1970 than in the fifty-five years since.”7  A “driving factor” of this “national sclerosis” is excessively burdensome NEPA review.8 

The numbers are stark.  In 1981, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) expected and advised agencies that “even large complex energy projects would require only about 12 months for the completion of the entire [environmental impact statement] process.”9  But over the intervening decades, federal regulatory agencies layered on more and more NEPA analysis, in an effort to satisfy litigation-happy anti-infrastructure groups and to defend against overly intrusive judicial review.10  By 2022, the average environmental impact statement preparation time was 4.2 years,11 and NEPA documents that would have spanned a “handful of pages in the early 1970s” ballooned to thousand-page tomes.12 NEPA—a modest procedural statute that Congress “apparently never contemplated [having] a significant role . . . in litigation”13—became precisely the “forum [for] . . . unjustified obstructionism” the Supreme Court warned against as early as 1978.14 

Inured to decades of NEPA “metastasis,”15 agencies and courts lost sight of the statute’s original, modest purpose: to ensure that agencies are adequately apprised of environmental information that is important to their substantive decisional choices.16  And while this sad charade produced a great deal of “paperwork—even excellent paperwork”17—it did so at the cost of kneecapping the Nation’s ability to build the infrastructure we desperately need. Weaponized litigation and infrastructure obstruction greatly succeeded in crippling American development.  The symptoms of this cancer permeate far beyond pipelines and are painfully evident in the choked ability of electricity generators and industrial operations to reliably obtain the gas they need in various parts of the country. 

II. Finally, America Has Awoken.  

There is now striking consensus on the critical need to halt and, crucially, reverse decades of NEPA overgrowth.  All three branches of government are in accord.  Through the BUILDER Act, Congress required agencies to shorten their NEPA documents and accelerate review timelines,18 which necessarily requires agencies’ careful discernment of what information to include in their analyses.  The President, in turn, commanded agencies to “expedite and simplify the permitting process” for energy projects by “adher[ing] to only the relevant legislated requirements for environmental considerations.”19  The Supreme Court called for a “course correction” to bring NEPA review back in line with the statute’s “modest procedural” purpose.20  And the D.C. Circuit, for its part, declared that “the era of searching NEPA review is over.”21  Outside of government, commentators from across the political spectrum have amplified these calls for reform.22

If the Supreme Court’s envisioned “course correction” is to become a reality, agencies must move.  The courts can only police agencies for doing too little NEPA analysis, not too much.23  So unless agencies proactively reassess their NEPA practices and pare back where appropriate, the only consequence of the Supreme Court’s call for reform will be to freeze agencies’ 2025-era NEPA practices in amber. That is not good enough for the country, nor for me.24

III. This FERC Is Restoring Sanity for the Greater Good.

Today’s draft policy statement is one component of the Commission’s broader effort to bring sanity and proportionality back to our NEPA reviews.  FERC is not an air regulator by congressional charge or by expertise; thus its project approvals are an inappropriate forum for opponents to litigate the details of mathematically complex air dispersion models.  That does not mean the Commission should not assess and consider operational air emissions and associated air quality effects under NEPA or the NGA.  As the draft policy statement explains, we will continue to do so.25  The only question is the appropriate “depth and breadth”26 of analysis in light of the Commission’s statutorily limited role in air emissions, and particularly operational air emissions that are separately subject to the oversight of actual expert air regulatory agencies. 

The more streamlined approach described in today’s draft policy statement is not motivated by a mere desire to reduce the word counts of our NEPA documents.  The costs, delays, and regulatory uncertainty associated with the Commission’s current, modeling-focused approach are grave.27 More to the point, those costs and delays are staggeringly disproportionate to the limited usefulness of the resulting information for the Commission’s NGA-prescribed decision-making.  As the draft policy statement outlines, the Commission simply does not (and should not) employ its NGA conditioning authority to act as a second substantive regulator of air emissions permitted under the Clean Air Act (CAA).28  It is a gross misuse of resources to routinely impose months of delay and associated financial harm—doubtless hundreds of millions of dollars over time, from an opportunity-cost standpoint—to provide ourselves with complex air dispersion modeling that contributes little to our substantive administration of the NGA.

The dissent disagrees.  It acknowledges Seven County’s message, but balks at today’s considered, bipartisan effort to trim a single branch from the gnarled oak of our pre-Seven County NEPA practice.  At the heart of the dissent lies a simple and very wrong premise:  that if it is possible for us to acquire more detailed information about an environmental effect, then it is mandatory for us to do so.

That approach to NEPA contradicts clear judicial precedent, common sense, and the apparent consensus of all three branches of government.29 Departing markedly from that consensus, the dissent contends that the methodology described in the draft policy statement is not “adequate[]” because it may generate NEPA documents that are less “robust” than the maximally “detailed assessment” that is theoretically achievable.30 This is precisely the type of “Kafkaesque” NEPA revanchism that Seven County intended to eliminate.31  As the D.C. Circuit has observed, “[a]n agency can always include more detail and more robust explanations” in its NEPA review.32  This principle of “more and more” could apply to all the environmental effects we consider. For example, in assessing effects on common, non-protected wildlife, the Commission could require every applicant to prepare acre-by-acre quantitative effects estimates, on a per-species basis—but it does not.  Or, in assessing impacts to the acreage of forested land, it could require an applicant to quantify the number and species of individual trees—but it does not.  In other words, the Commission does not demand that applicants produce maximally detailed studies on every category of effects.  

Thus, as to every resource area and category of environmental effects, the critical question is not whether we can require more detailed information, but whether we should.33  That judgment call necessarily depends on the “usefulness of any [further] information to [our] decisionmaking process.”34  We must determine whether the costs of more detailed analysis are worth the informational benefits for our substantive decision-making.  And in so doing, we operate “within a broad range of reasonableness.”35  That is the core premise upon which Seven County is based, and it is the core issue on which the draft policy statement takes a stand.

The dissent fails to contend with this critical point.  Instead, it is largely a treatise about how air dispersion modeling works and what information it is intended to provide.36  Those are not the pertinent questions.  The critical, “policy-laden” issue we must confront is whether this depth of analysis is warranted given its lack of usefulness to our decision-making.37

The dissent accuses us of making an “exception” for air quality impacts under NEPA or the NGA.38 But that is obviously not true.  As the draft policy statement explains, we will continue to address air quality effects in our NEPA documents, evaluating a wealth of quantitative and qualitative information submitted by applicants and identified by Commission staff.39 As Commissioner Rosner ably explains in his concurrence, the approach outlined in the draft policy statement will continue to “give the Commission and the public a clear picture” of a project’s air-related effects, thus “satisfy[ing] our NEPA obligations” while also avoiding the need to “duplicat[e] modeling” that our partners in state government already require where needed.40  Indeed, even the dissent itself eventually concedes that the approach outlined today will suffice to apprise us of “the general nature and magnitude of [a project’s] expected impact” on air quality.41  In fact, it will do quite a lot more than that, providing detailed information about existing air quality; quantified, pollutant-by-pollutant emissions figures; and a rigorous understanding of how the applicant proposes to lessen and mitigate those effects.42  In other words, it will allow us to identify proposed projects’ air quality effects, describe those effects’ magnitude, and consider feasible alternatives, precisely as NEPA requires.43

The dissent nonetheless declares the draft policy statement “insufficient.”44  But it provides no explanation of why, save the repeated observation that more detail is in principle available—albeit, as the dissent does not dispute, at the cost of substantial expense and delay for project applicants and the Commission.  As for whether the associated expense and delay is warranted in light of the highly limited usefulness of the additional information at issue, the dissent is virtually silent.45

This Commission will not sweep NEPA’s costs under the rug in the post-BUILDER Act, post-Seven County landscape.  To reiterate, the Commission’s incumbent modeling-based approach can substantially delay much-needed projects as Commission staff exchanges iterative data requests and responses with applicants46—all in service of gathering information that duplicates or exceeds what is required in connection with CAA permitting. Perhaps such performances could be justified if the resultant information proved useful to the Commission’s substantive decision-making.  But, as the draft policy statement explains, that plainly is not the case.  We are not air regulators by congressional charge and, as our decisions bear out, we do not act as air regulators in practice.47  We should not erect complex and burdensome procedural barriers to timely infrastructure development that do not materially assist us in carrying out our regulatory responsibilities.  Nor, as Seven County makes clear, does NEPA require that we do so. 

The dissent’s attempt to counter this logic inadvertently confirms it.  The sole support offered for the assertion that our burdensome, time-consuming modeling analysis has beneficial “real world impacts”48 is two cited instances—over a decade-long time span—in which we required project developers to monitor air emissions and submit reports.49  The number of examples cited where our modeling analysis under NEPA led to an actual reduction in operational emissions, beyond what was already inherent in compliance with governing CAA requirements, is zero.

In light of this reality, the dissent sidesteps the critical questions that Seven County implores us to confront directly.  How much delay in energy project permitting is warranted to enable review of additional air modeling data, especially given that such data is demonstrably unlikely to influence the Commission’s decision-making?  For how many months should homeowners and businesses be forced to live with outdated or inadequate infrastructure, raising their energy bills and potentially delaying the roll-out of new facilities that are more efficient, safer, and often environmentally superior?  How many man-hours of well-paying work should skilled employees and contractors be forced to do without, until we have satisfied our desire for “just a little more process”?50  For how long should our allies be deprived of additional liquefied natural gas, which our Nation’s industry stands ready and willing to deliver now, in order to indulge performative regulation?  And how is any of that consistent with the President’s declaration of an energy emergency, and clear direction for agencies to eliminate barriers to infrastructure development?51

IV. The Law Does Not Tie Our Hands, nor Does It Force Us to Maintain the Status Quo as the Dissent Implies.

The dissent primarily focuses on the importance the draft policy statement places on the CAA’s comprehensive regulatory scheme.  But nothing about that approach is novel.  The Commission always has placed major emphasis on applicants’ compliance with governing state and federal regulatory requirements in our analysis of air quality effects under NEPA52—just as we do in assessing the significance of other project effects subject to extensive regulation under separate statutory schemes.53

The dissent insists that state air quality permitting cannot “substitute” for NEPA review,54 but the new policy proposes nothing of the sort.  On the contrary, the Commission will continue to analyze air quality effects under NEPA, including effects from operational facility emissions, and we will continue to welcome and consider stakeholder comments and concerns regarding such effects.  All the draft policy statement proposes is to foreground applicants’ compliance with the CAA and state permits thereunder in our assessment of whether effects are “significant”55 within NEPA’s meaning—which really amounts to a determination of whether those effects are sufficiently severe to warrant preparation of a lengthier environmental impact statement.56  That approach breaks no new ground57 and has been repeatedly upheld by the courts.58  It is also simple common sense.59

Nonetheless, the dissent urges that we must not rely on CAA compliance in assessing the significance of projects’ air effects, because although the CAA’s comprehensive regulatory scheme ensures the maintenance of air quality at the level of air quality control regions,60 it does not necessarily foreclose more localized exceedances.61  But NEPA requires us to assess whether a project has a “significant effect on the quality of the human environment,”62 not to classify effects as “significant” or “less than significant” relative to any and all levels of geographic focus, however narrow.

That is why even the pre-Seven County cases the dissent cites (which, in any event, were largely based on since-repealed CEQ regulations)63 recognized that agencies have broad discretion in determining the appropriate level of geographic specificity with which they discuss effects’ significance.64  That principle holds even more strongly after Seven County, which “doubly underscore[d]” and reinforced agencies’ discretion to draw a “manageable line,” appropriately tailored to their informational needs, when determining the appropriate depth and detail of analysis.65  Although the dissent would clearly prefer a more granular quantitative analysis, even for projects whose incremental emissions are extremely minor,66 nothing in NEPA requires such approach. 

The dissent also raises concerns about compliance with the CAA’s General Conformity requirements.67  But the draft policy statement is crystal clear that the Commission is not changing its approach to General Conformity review and compliance, which is legally distinct from NEPA.68  The Commission’s extraordinary staff is well-versed in the General Conformity program’s requirements, and if case-specific circumstances require dispersion modeling in order to discharge our General Conformity responsibilities, staff can and will require applicants to submit the necessary information.69 

Finally, the dissent raises concerns about litigation risk for project developers.70 After spending my career litigating FERC orders from both sides, no one on this Commission is more painfully cognizant than I of the importance of ensuring our orders are legally durable.  But, as the D.C. Circuit has now repeatedly explained, “the era of searching NEPA review is over.”71  We cannot forswear reasonable, targeted, and thoroughly justified NEPA reforms out of fear that a future judicial panel may depart from explicit post-Seven County precedent.  Such a posture of administrative timidity would render a half-century of NEPA overgrowth permanent, effectively betraying the promise of Seven County, and guidance from both Congress and the President.72

Nevertheless, the dissent’s concerns about litigation risk are misplaced.  To begin, project applicants who wish to submit dispersion modeling are welcome to do so, if they believe submission would provide a more fulsome administrative record on which the Commission may base its decisions.73  Moreover, the dissent’s premise that the Commission’s incumbent approach provides greater legal certainty or durability collapses under scrutiny.  On the contrary, it is precisely our reliance on mathematically complex dispersion modeling that has provided project opponents ample opportunities to “flyspeck” our analyses on appeal, making air-related issues a primary source of litigation risk for project developers under the incumbent approach.74  In the long run, project developers, the energy markets, and the U.S. economy will be far better served by a clear, simple, and straightforward approach.

My legacy will not be cowering timidity.  It will be surgical, strategic, aggressive reform that propels the country and our next generations into energy security and prosperity.

For these reasons, I respectfully concur. 

________________________

Laura V. Swett

Chairman

• 1Seven Cnty. Infrastructure Coal. v. Eagle Cnty., Colo., 605 U.S. 168, 184 (2025) (Seven County).
• 2Id.
• 3Env’t Rev. of Nat. Gas Act Applications, ___ FERC ¶ ____, at PP 31-39 (2026) (Draft Policy Statement).
• 4See, e.g., id. P 4 (Chang, Comm’r, dissenting) (Dissent) (citing NAACP v. Fed. Power Comm’n, 425 U.S. 662, 669-70 (1976)).
• 5Appalachian Voices v. FERC, 139 F.4th 903, 916 (D.C. Cir. 2025) (Henderson, J., concurring) (describing, inter alia, widespread electrification of American homes from 1915 to 1940).
• 6Id.
• 7Id.
• 8Id. 
• 9Council on Env’t Quality, Forty Most Asked Questions Concerning CEQ’s National Environmental Policy Act Regulations, 46 Fed. Reg. 18026, 18037 (Mar. 23, 1981).
• 10See Seven County, 605 U.S. at 183-84; Appalachian Voices, 139 F.4th at 922-23 (Henderson, J., concurring).
• 11See Zachary Liscow, Getting Infrastructure Built: The Law and Economics of Permitting, J. Econ. Perspectives, Winter 2025, at 151, 156-57.
• 12Aidan Mackenzie & Santi Ruiz, No, NEPA Really Is a Problem for Clean Energy, Inst. for Progress (Aug. 17, 2023), https://ifp.org/no-nepa-really-is-a-problem-for-clean-energy.
• 13Richard Lazarus, The National Environmental Policy Act in the U.S. Supreme Court: A Reappraisal and a Peek Behind the Curtains, 100 Geo. L.J. 1507, 1515 (2012) (cited by Seven County, 605 U.S. at 179 n.2).
• 14Vt. Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 435 U.S. 519, 553 (1978). 
• 15Appalachian Voices, 139 F.4th at 926 (Henderson, J., concurring).
• 16See Seven County, 605 U.S. at 181 (“[A]gencies determine whether and to what extent to prepare an [environmental impact statement] based on the usefulness of any new potential information to the decisionmaking process.” (quoting Dep’t of Transp. v. Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. 752, 767 (2004)); see also infra P 11 & nn.33-34.
• 17Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. at 768 (citation omitted).
• 18U.S.C. § 4336a(e), (g); accord Seven County, 605 U.S. at 181 n.3.
• 19Exec. Order No. 14,154, 90 Fed. Reg. 8353, 8355-56 (Jan. 20, 2025).
• 20Seven County, 605 U.S. at 184.
• 21Save the Sound, Inc. v. FAA, 183 F.4th 763, 776 (D.C. Cir. 2026) (quoting Sierra Club v. FERC, 153 F.4th 1295, 1311 (D.C. Cir. 2025)).
• 22See Diane Katz, Curbing Abuses of a Politicized NEPA, Heritage Found. (Aug. 25, 2020), https://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/report/curbing-abuses-politicized-nepa; Mark Levitt, Reboot NEPA, Breakthrough Inst. (Oct. 27, 2025), https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/environmental-regulatory-reform/reboot-nepa; Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson, Abundance 96 (2025); Mackenzie & Ruiz, supra note 12.
• 23See Seven County, 605 U.S. at 186 n.5.
• 24Our sister agencies have recognized this imperative as well.  The Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and the Interior have all made significant NEPA reforms this year, as have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and numerous other agencies.  And CEQ, acknowledging the call for NEPA reform from “all three branches of government at the highest possible levels,” finalized the rescission of its NEPA regulations this January.  Council on Env’t Quality, Removal of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations, 91 Fed. Reg. 618, 620 (Jan. 8, 2026); see also, e.g., U.S. Dep’t of Agric., National Environmental Policy Act, 91 Fed. Reg. 17062, 17065 (Apr. 3, 2026) (revising NEPA implementing regulations to reflect recent “guidance given . . . by the President and the Supreme Court”).
• 25Draft Policy Statement, ___ FERC ¶ ____ at P 4.
• 26Id. PP 8, 31 (quoting Seven County, 605 U.S. at 183).
• 27Cf. id. P 17.
• 28Id. P 26.
• 29See supra PP 5, 6 n.24; see also Tenn. Valley Auth., Continued Operation of the Cumberland Fossil Plant Final Supplemental Impact Statement (SEIS 455-00-000-1760704971), at vi, 47‑50 (Feb. 2026) (in matter involving analysis of air impacts from continued operation of coal plant, emphasizing that “[c]ompliance with [CAA] permit requirements would be protective of ambient air quality”).  The dissent suggests that our proposed approach will “deviate from how other federal agencies assess operational air impacts under NEPA post-Seven County,” Dissent at P 47 citing three environmental impact statements prepared by other agencies, see id. P 47 n.62.  But all three examples involve proceedings initiated or applications filed before the Supreme Court issued its judgment in Seven County. I leave it for the reader to judge whether an agency’s discussion of air modeling prepared pre-Seven County is probative when discerning “post-Seven County” practice.  In any case, none of the documents the dissent references include any analysis by our peer agencies suggesting that the approach we outline today is any way legally infirm. 
• 30Dissent at PP 1, 28-29.
• 31Seven County, 605 U.S. at 183.
• 32Save the Sound, 183 F.4th at 776.
• 33See Tinicum Twp., Pa. v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., 685 F.3d 288, 296 (3d Cir. 2012) (“While additional data might enable a more detailed environmental analysis, NEPA does not require maximum detail.  Rather, it requires agencies to make a series of line-drawing decisions based on the significance and usefulness of additional information.”).
• 34Seven County, 605 U.S. at 183 (quoting Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. at 767); see Cascadia Wildlands v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 153 F.4th 869, 903 (9th Cir. 2025) (“Particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s guidance in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, we will not micromanage or unduly scrutinize the agency’s assessment as to the level of detail to provide. . . .”).
• 35Save the Sound, 183 F.4th at 776; accord Seven County, 605 U.S. at 183.
• 36Dissent at PP 22-31. 
• 37Seven County, 605 U.S. at 183.  Nor is it a “technical flaw[]” that the draft policy statement answers this question in a way the dissent doesn’t like.  Dissent at P 20.  Readers will note that the dissent identifies no flaws in the new policy’s methods, save that they entail less extensive analysis than the incumbent approach. That is not a “technical” failing, but a deliberate choice made for well-considered reasons. 
• 38Dissent at P 2.
• 39See Draft Policy Statement, ___ FERC ¶ ____ at P 35.
• 40Id. P 3 (Rosner, Comm’r, concurring).
• 41Dissent at P 30.
• 42See Draft Policy Statement, ___ FERC ¶ ____ at P 14; accord 18 C.F.R. § 380.12(k) (2025).
• 43See Seven County, 605 U.S. at 177.
• 44Dissent at P 20.
• 45Consider, in this regard, the “simple example” the dissent offers to illustrate the new policy’s purported inadequacies: a compressor station expansion the emissions from which are so low that the governing air regulatory agency doesn’t even require a permit, let alone detailed dispersion modeling.  Id. P 35.  Under our new policy, we would acknowledge, quantify, and discuss those emissions, assessing them against the backdrop of existing ambient air quality and evaluating any applicant-proposed mitigation measures.  But, the dissent observes, we would not (as we do now) require a level of analysis far surpassing what the air regulatory agency administering delegated CAA authority would deem warranted for such a small-fry project.  The dissent calls this a worrisome analytic “gap,” id.; I call it a return to sanity.  Of course our “modest procedural” “cross-check” under NEPA should not force projects with sufficiently marginal emissions to go through costly and time-consuming analysis that substantive air regulatory agencies have deemed unnecessary given the level of emissions involved.  Seven County, 605 U.S. at 173, 183; see id. at 183 (lamenting NEPA’s use to “delay[] even those projects that otherwise comply with all relevant substantive environmental laws”).  Only someone badly desensitized to fifty years of NEPA bloat could think otherwise.
• 46See Draft Policy Statement, ___ FERC ¶ ____ at P 17.
• 47See id. P 26.  As the draft policy statement emphasizes, this does not reflect an abdication of responsibility on our part; rather, it reflects a salutary division of responsibility, and the success of the CAA and the agencies that administer it in controlling project emissions.  Id.
• 48Dissent at P 54.
• 49Id. P 43 n.52; see Draft Policy Statement, ___ FERC ¶ ____ at P 26 nn.68-69 (discussing same orders).
• 50Seven County, 605 U.S. at 184.
• 51Exec. Order No. 14,156, 90 Fed. Reg. 8433, 8434 (Jan. 20, 2025); Exec. Order No. 14,154, 90 Fed. Reg. at 8355-56.  Nor can the dissent invoke NEPA’s “public information purpose” as an escape hatch.  Contra Dissent at PP 37-38.  The Supreme Court rejected a structurally identical argument in Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen, explaining that where “NEPA’s core focus on improving agency decisionmaking” is not served by conducting further analysis, the statute imposes no freestanding duty to do so for “informational purposes.” 541 U.S. at 768-69 & n.2.  That makes eminent sense, given that NEPA’s purpose is to inform agency action, not to produce reports for their own sake. Id. at 768-69.
• 52See 18 C.F.R. § 380.12(k)(3) (requiring applicants to address “how existing [air] regulatory standards would be met” and, for major sources, provide copies of CAA permit applications); FERC Office of Energy Projects, Guidance Manual for Environmental Report Preparation for Applications Filed Under the Natural Gas Act, Volume 1, at 4-121 (Feb. 2017), https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/guidance-manual-volume-1.pdf (advising applicants to identify and describe applicable federal, state, and local air quality regulations and permits, as well as how the project facilities would comply with each).
• 53For example, compliance with Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration standards is central to our consideration of pipelines’ public-safety effects under NEPA.  See, e.g., Port Arthur Pipeline, LLC, 187 FERC ¶ 61,105, at P 16 (2024); Rio Bravo Pipeline Co., 187 FERC ¶ 61,104, at PP 57-58 (2024).
• 54Dissent at PP 33, 36.
• 55Draft Policy Statement, ___ FERC ¶ ____ at P 38.
• 56Cf. Food & Water Watch v. FERC, 104 F.4th 336, 346 (D.C. Cir. 2024). (explaining the role of “significance” determinations under NEPA).
• 57See, e.g., Commonwealth LNG, LLC, 191 FERC ¶ 61,205, at P 18 & n.57 (2025) (“Generally, the Commission would consider compliance with the state PSD program and any required mitigation . . . as a reasonable indication that the project’s air emissions will not result in significant effects.”).
• 58See, e.g., Pub. Citizen v. NHTSA, 848 F.2d 256, 267-68 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, J.) (upholding agency determination that no environmental impact statement was required when possible increases in emissions fall within CAA limits); Friends of Animals v. Burgum, 164 F.4th 738, 752 (9th Cir. 2026) (upholding agency reliance on state permitting process and regulatory compliance in determining that effects would not be significant); Gunpowder Riverkeeper v. FERC, 807 F.3d 267, 281 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (Rogers, J., dissenting in part and concurring in the judgment) (explaining that Commission acted appropriately by relying on other agencies’ permitting processes to conclude that environmental effects would not be significant).
• 59The dissent prominently relies on Calvert Cliffs’ Coordinating Committee, Inc. v. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, 449 F.2d 1109 (D.C. Cir. 1971).  But Calvert Cliffs, which addressed an agency’s refusal to consider effects regulated by other agencies at all, or even accept comments thereon, see id. at 1122, is not implicated here.  Regardless, I gravely doubt that Calvert Cliffs—a decision that opened by forthrightly lauding NEPA’s potential to slow down what its author viewed as “the destructive engine of material ‘progress,’” id. at 1111—meaningfully survives Seven County, at least beyond its narrowest application.  Cf. Appalachian Voices, 139 F.4th at 921-922 (Henderson, J., concurring) (criticizing Calvert Cliffs as exemplary of the judiciary’s improper expansion of NEPA, as chronicled in Seven County). At minimum, we should be taking our cues on appropriate NEPA practice from Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court, not the ghost of J. Skelly Wright.
• 60These regions number in the hundreds.  See generally 40 C.F.R. pt. 81 (2025). 
• 61Dissent at P 32. 
• 62U.S.C. § 4336(b)(1)-(2) (emphasis added); see id. § 4332(2)(C).
• 63See WildEarth Guardians v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric. Animal & Plant Health Inspection Serv. Wildlife Servs., 135 F.4th 717, 728-29 (9th Cir. 2025) (relying on 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27 (2020)); Anderson v. Evans, 371 F.3d 475, 490 (9th Cir. 2004) (same). Those CEQ regulations, which in many respects went beyond NEPA’s statutory requirements, see, e.g., E. Gas Trans. & Storage, Inc., 195 FERC ¶ 61,218 at P 25, have now been rescinded.  See supra P 6 n.24; cf. Appalachian Voices, 139 F.4th at 924 (Henderson, J., concurring) (explaining that CEQ’s regulations historically imposed requirements that “appear[] nowhere in NEPA itself”).
• 64E.g., WildEarth Guardians, 135 F.4th at 730.
• 65Seven County, 605 U.S. at 182-83 (citation omitted).
• 66See, e.g., Dissent at P 35.
• 67Id. PP 49-53.
• 68Draft Policy Statement, ___ FERC ¶ ____ at P 14 n.37.
• 69See 18 C.F.R. § 380.3(b)(2) (2025).
• 70See Dissent at PP 44-48.
• 71Save the Sound, 183 F.4th at 776 (quoting Sierra Club, 153 F.4th at 1311). 
• 72See supra PP 5-6.
• 73Draft Policy Statement, ___ FERC ¶ ____ at P 36.
• 74See id. P 18 & nn.49-50.