ELR Citation: ELR 20157
No(s). s. 07-73664 et al (9th Cir. Jul 20, 2009)

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of a FERC decision denying environmental groups' motion to intervene in a license renewal proceeding for a dam. Although the groups' motion to intervene was late, they argued that FERC abused its discretion in denying their late intervention motion since their late intervention would not prejudice FERC's proceeding. But the court ruled that FERC's decision was not an abuse of its discretion. As long as an agency's procedural rules do not afford petitioners less protection than the minimum mandated by the APA and the U.S. Constitution, a court may not intrude into an agency's decisionmaking process and second-guess its administrative trade offs. The regulation at issue explicitly confers on FERC a broad power to differentiate among untimely interveners and permits it to summarily reject a prospective intervener who cannot demonstrate "good cause" for its untimely motion. Here, FERC reasonably determined that the groups lacked good cause for their untimely attempt to intervene. Accordingly, the groups' petition for review was denied.