Commissioner James Danly Statement
August 31, 2023
Project No. 15271-000
I write separately to express concern regarding the Commission’s recent processing of preliminary permit applications. Lawmakers frequently propose reforms to the hydropower license process[1] which on average takes 6.7 years.[2] Members of the Commission often state that the agency does what it can to speed up the hydropower licensing process[3]—a process that I agree is cumbersome given the multitude of issues that Congress has directed be considered and other federal issuances that Congress has required.[4]
Yet, in this proceeding along with two others that we act on today, the Commission took nearly 10 months to complete the ministerial task of merely noticing the preliminary permit application.[5] There is no evidence to suggest that the applications were deficient. Nor is acting on a preliminary permit a complicated task. A preliminary permit does not grant access to the contemplated project site or authorization to conduct land-disturbing activities.[6] It only grants a permittee the priority to file a license application for a contemplated project while it studies the feasibility of that project. Put differently, the purpose of a preliminary permit is to provide a project developer certainty that it will have the opportunity to apply for a license application before it expends resources.
Can such delays be attributed to mere oversight? Could there be some longstanding, unarticulated policy at play?[7] How, for example, can anyone explain the delay in ruling on one particular preliminary permit application for a pumped storage project that has been pending for over three years.[8] Given how long it takes, even under the best of circumstances, to license hydropower facilities, and given how important hydropower is to the utility system, we should do everything we can to avoid unnecessary delays.
For these reasons, I respectfully concur.
[1] See, e.g., The Community & Hydropower Improvement Act, S.1521, 118th Cong. (2023) (Senator Daines and Cantwell introduced the bill to “amend the Federal Power Act to modernize and improve the licensing of non-Federal hydropower projects . . . .”).
[2] Aaron Levin, et al., An Examination of the Hydropower Licensing and Federal Authorization Process, at xi (Oct. 2021), https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/79242.pdf.
[3] Hearing to Review Administration of Laws Within FERC’s Jurisdiction Before the S. Comm. On Energy & Nat. Res., 117th Cong. (September 27, 2021), https://www.energy.senate.gov/hearings/2021/9/full-committee-hearing-to-review-administration-of-laws-within-ferc-jurisdiction?new= (in response to Senator Daines asking how “FERC and Congress could help expedite the approval and development of new hydropower facilities,” I stated, “[e]very chairman that I have worked either under or alongside has wanted to make the hydropower process more speedy and clear.”).
[4] See Commissioner Danly June 8, 2023 Response to Questions for the Record Submitted by Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, at 26-27, https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/oversight-federal-energy-regulatory-commission-questions-record-submitted.
[5] Premium Energy Holdings, LLC, 184 FERC ¶ 61,130, at PP 1, 3 (2023) (application was filed March 31, 2022, and noticed 9 months and 19 days later on January 19, 2023); Premium Energy Holdings, LLC, 184 FERC ¶ 61,131, at PP 1, 4. (2023) (same); Premium Energy Holdings, LLC, 184 FERC ¶ 61,132, at PP 1, 3 (2023) (application was filed March 31, 2022, and noticed 9 months and 26 days later on January 26, 2023).
[6] Premium Energy Holdings, LLC, 184 FERC ¶ 61,130 at P 7.
[7] Cf. Commissioner Danly November 29, 2021 Letter to Senator Barrasso, Docket Nos. CP20-27-000, et al. (Accession No. 20211214-4001) (discussing natural gas pipeline certificate application processing delays).
[8] See Pumped Hydro Storage LLC, Preliminary Permit Application, Project No. 15024-000 (Accession No. 20200312-5069) (application was filed on March 12, 2020).