Coordination of Federal Authorizations for Electric Transmission Facilities

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 900</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DOE-HQ-2023-0050]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1901-AB62</RIN> <SUBJECT>Coordination of Federal Authorizations for Electric Transmission Facilities</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Grid Deployment Office, U.S. Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Energy (DOE) is amending its regulations for the timely coordination of Federal authorizations for proposed interstate electric transmission facilities pursuant to the Federal Power Act (FPA). Specifically, DOE is establishing an integrated and comprehensive Coordinated Interagency Transmission Authorizations and Permits Program (CITAP Program); making participation in the Integrated Interagency Pre-Application (IIP) Process a pre-condition for assistance under the CITAP Program; re-establishing the IIP Process as an iterative and collaborative process between the proponent of a proposed electric transmission project and Federal and State agencies to develop information needed for Federal authorizations; requiring the project proponent to engage in robust engagement with the public, communities of interest, and Indian Tribes during the IIP Process; aligning and harmonizing the IIP Process and implementation of the FPA with the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act; and ensuring that DOE may carry out its statutory obligation to prepare a single environmental review document sufficient for the purposes of all Federal authorizations necessary to site a proposed project. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective May 31, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Liza Reed, U.S. Department of Energy, Grid Deployment Office, 4H-065, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585. Telephone: (202) 586-2006. Email: <E T="03">CITAP@hq.doe.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background and Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Summary of the Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Tribal Sovereignty</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Terminology and Clarification Changes</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Discussion of Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. General</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Purpose and Scope</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Qualifying Projects</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Purpose and Scope of IIP Process</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Public Participation in the IIP Process</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Timing of IIP Process and NOI Issuance</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. IIP Process Initiation Request</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Standard and Project-Specific Schedules</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Selection of NEPA Lead and Joint Lead Agencies and Environmental Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Section 106 of the NHPA</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Definitions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Resource Reports</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Administrative Docket</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">N. Interaction With FPA 216(a) and FPA 216(b)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">O. Miscellaneous</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">P. Out of Scope Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Section-by-Section Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Review Under Executive Orders 12866, 13563, and 14094</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Review Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Review Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Review Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Review Under Executive Order 12988</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Review Under Executive Order 13132</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Review Under Executive Order 13175</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Review Under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Review Under Executive Order 12630</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Review Under Executive Order 13211</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Review Under the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1999</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Review Under the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 2001</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IX. Congressional Notification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">X. Rehearing</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">XI. Approval by the Office of the Secretary of Energy</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> In this final rule, the Department of Energy (DOE) is amending its regulations under section 216(h) of the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824p(h)) (FPA) to establish a Coordinated Interagency Transmission Authorizations and Permits Program (CITAP Program) under which DOE will coordinate and expedite Federal authorizations and environmental reviews required to site proposed electric transmission facilities, which may include reviews pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (Pub. L. 91-190, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 4321 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) (NEPA), the National Historic Preservation Act (Pub. L. 89-665, as amended, 54 U.S.C. 30010 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) (NHPA), the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Pub. L. 93-205, as amended, 16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) (ESA), and evaluations necessary for authorizations under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (Pub. L. 94-579, as amended, 43 U.S.C. 1701 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). DOE coordination under this final rule will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the Federal authorization and review process for proposed electric transmission facilities by establishing pre-application procedures designed to collect the information needed to perform efficient and timely Federal authorization and environmental reviews, reducing duplication of effort through preparation of a single environmental review document as the basis for all Federal decisions, and setting binding schedules for the completion of all Federal authorizations and environmental reviews. In doing so, this final rule aims to reduce the time it takes to site and permit the electric transmission infrastructure needed to ensure the delivery of reliable, resilient and low-cost electricity to American homes and businesses. Actions to enable more rapid deployment of electric transmission are more important than ever. As DOE documented in its 2023 National Transmission Needs Study, additional transmission capacity is needed in nearly every region of the country to improve the reliability and resilience of electric service, alleviate high costs caused by transmission congestion and constraints that prevents low-cost energy from reaching customers, and access new low-cost low carbon energy supplies to serve increasing electricity demands. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Over the past decade additional transmission capacity has been added at half the rate of the previous three decades, at a time when electricity demand is increasing and new diverse sources of electricity generation are needed to serve that demand and meet Federal, State, and consumer goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Accelerating the current pace of transmission infrastructure investment and deployment is needed to meet these objectives and will generate multiple benefits to the public, including improved reliability and resilience, lower electricity costs, additional economic activity, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. By enabling rapid development of transmission capacity, the CITAP Program will help increase access to a diversity of generation sources, reduce transmission congestion and power-sector emissions, and deliver reliable, affordable power that future consumers will need when and where they need it. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  United States Department of Energy, National Transmission Needs Study (Feb. 2023), available at: <E T="03">https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/022423-DRAFTNeedsStudyforPublicComment.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Jenkins, J.D. <E T="03">et al.</E> (2022) <E T="03">Electricity transmission is key to unlock the full potential of the Inflation Reduction Act, Zenodo.</E> Available at: <E T="03">https://zenodo.org/record/7106176#:~:text=Previously%2C%20REPEAT%20Project%20estimated%20that%20IRA%20could%20cut,from%20electric%20vehicles%2C%20heat%20pumps%2C%20and%20other%20electrification.</E> </FTNT> On August 23, 2023, in accordance with section 216(h) of the FPA and a May 2023 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among nine Federal agencies committing to expedite the siting, permitting, and construction of electricity transmission infrastructure through more effective implementation of section 216(h) of the FPA, DOE issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR), to establish the CITAP Program. (88 FR 57011). <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Under the CITAP Program, the entity or individual heading the project (“project proponent”) will work with DOE and other Federal agencies to gather materials necessary to inform the completion of authorizations and environmental reviews. These materials include thirteen reports the project proponent will prepare that describe the proposed project and its potential impacts on resources including land, water, plant and animal life (“resource reports”); a summary of the proposed project that will include details on which Federal authorizations or permits may be necessary and the anticipated timeline to completion of acquiring the described authorizations and permits; and proposed project participation and public engagement plans, which will outline opportunities for the public to participate in project authorization decisions and ensure sufficient engagement with both communities of interest and relevant stakeholders. This process of collaborative information gathering is referred to as the “Integrated Interagency Pre- ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 523k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━